Off to the Zoo

Every once in a while, rarely a day here or there, in my lowest of moments, my son makes me question having more children.  Judge me if you want.  But it’s the truth.  (And if you are judging me, then, hey hey, you you, get off of my blog.)

I’m not sure what was wrong with him yesterday.  It’s very difficult for everyone involved when someone cannot communicate.  We started off the weekend with a few hours of missed sleep Friday night.  Saturday evening he had a low fever.  By Sunday, my once sweet baby James was a monster.  Loss of sleep?  Caught a bug?  Teething?  Stir crazy?  Behavioral issues?  Ear infections again?  Brat?  We questioned every possibility.  Who knows.  But yesterday was such a bad day that before Justin left for work this morning, he kissed me and said, “Good luck.”  Dead serious.  He was not kidding.

So this morning, I thought I would snap James back into reality.  And what better way than at the zoo.  I knew it was going to be a success at the entrance when we got stopped for a train.  That was a dream come true for my little choo-chooing toddler.  And the amazement began.

We met Callie, Chloe & Erin, and in we went as the gates opened at 9:00.

Chloe and James watching birds

We’ve only been to the zoo once.  James was 9 months old, didn’t really understand much of what was going on, and was still in his loud-noises-scare-me-to-death-phase.  A phase that lasted a year.  Not an easy kid, this one.  Anyways, after checking out some birds and bears this morning, we went to see the gorilla.  {By the way, James barks when he sees anything with fur so, you can insert “mmfff, mmfff” in every sentence or two.}

Callie was ecstatic.

James was in shock.

After that, James felt empowered.  He ditched the stroller and decided to conquer the day on his own two feet.  With Callie, of course.

At Chloe’s expense.

We saw monkeys, sloths, flamingos, and turtles.

The kiddos sat on a turtle.

Then we headed to the aquarium for some air conditioning fish watching.

At the aquarium: Callie cheesing and James in shock

We told James that one day he’ll give anything to sit this close to Callie.  Even in an aquarium nook.  But he wasn’t having it.

He was however, very into running and yelling at the top of his lungs.  Embarrassing his Mommy, but being happy was the goal of the day.  So happy we were.

After working up an appetite, we headed to the café for a snack break.

We charged up, visited the penguins, ran around some more and stopped to feed a giraffe.

Before we knew it, we were approaching lunch and nap time!  Thank you girls, for going to the zoo with us.  We can’t wait to go again!  As for me, two things remain constant 1) I’m still not an animal person, and 2) I will do anything in the world to make this baby happy.