Tommy and Mommy go to the ZOO!

I can't believe I forgot to bring the camera....ARRRGHHH!!

But anyway...

For those of you who have read a few of these blog entries, you can begin to see the recurring theme in how I always start them...you can say it along with me if you like...."I have to make this quick because I don't know how much longer Tommy will be sleeping." There. Now that we have that out of the way....

Yes, yesterday I took Thomas to the zoo. With three and half days off in a row (I don't have to be at work tonight until 6pm) I have vowed to make sure that Tommy and I got to do something fun together this week...something more than just going to the park or going for a walk, although we both always enjoy those things. The weather has been so nice, though, that I'm waiting until it gets colder to do things like children's museums and those kinds of things that can be done indoors. I'm also wondering if he is old enough yet to like going to the movies. I was thinking of taking him to a movie where it's aimed at children and Moms during the day. That way he won't be disturbing anyone else's viewing experience.

As usual, I am digressing. When I woke up yesterday the weather looked really good. So after Thomas got up, I got him his breakfast, got him dressed, and packed a bag with diapers, snacks, sandwich, multiple layers of clothing [since San Francisco has so many microclimates that it might be 20+ degrees colder 3 miles away from your house], sunscreen, bottles and water. We actually managed to get out the door by 10am, which is pretty good. I stopped to get a soda, since they charge about $3 or $4 for one at the zoo, withdrew some cash from the ATM, and we were on our way. It was a relatively cheap outing, too, since I had an Entertainment Book coupon for 50% off of my admission (bringing it to $5) and Thomas is still free until he turns 3. I did pay for parking (another $5), since I haven't gotten around to renewing my license plate tabs yet (tssk, tssk, I know - btw, they don't renew on your birthday here like they do in Michigan, they renew whenever you first licensed the car, so I've been remiss for a while, I'm embarassed to admit) and I didn't want to take a chance of getting a ticket while parking on the street. I'm just dreading going to the DMV because it takes about a half a day of standing in line (literally!) . I decided I'm going to do that at the same time as I renew my driver's license this year, so I only have to waste one day on the whole thing. In the meantime, I have to be a bit careful about parking because it's a $50 ticket if one of those damn meter maids sees that my plate is expired. I am not going to digress further on a rant about the price of tickets in San Francisco or about the DMV here which is so bad that about 1/4 of the cars that you see driving around have expired tabs, because NO ONE wants to wait in that long line so EVERYONE puts it off as long as possible.

But all of this has nothing to do with my wonderful day with Tommy, now does it? We got to the zoo about 10:45 or so. The first thing I showed him was the zebras and giraffes since they are very close to the entrance. He seemed a little unsure at that point, as though was having a hard time absorbing that those were the same animals as the ones he sees in book and the little figurines that he plays with.

Here, I will take just a moment to digress again. About a month or so ago, I may have already mentioned this, I bought Tommy a tube with these little tiny (about two inches or so) plastic wild animals. There are 12 of them: camel, elephant, lion, tiger, zebra, giraffe, alligator, hippo, rhino, panther, bear, and gorilla. He LOVES these things. He immediately learned what they all are, and much to my surprise has no trouble distinguishing between the similar ones like the rhino and the hippo. He plays with these things CONSTANTLY. He will arrange them all in a line and make a 'choo choo', he will spend time counting them in and out of their plastic tube, He will talk about them. Any game or interaction that you have with those animals and you have got that kid's attention. He is enthralled with these animals. So that is why I thought, oh, I'm going to be the hero of the day, SUPERMOM, when I take him to the zoo to see them all in person. hahaha

And so...I was a tiny bit disappointed with his initial lukewarm reaction. I needn't have worried. Once he saw the zebras and the giraffes he started saying, 'lion, lion', so I took him over to see the lions, but they were sleeping and it was hard to see them. Tommy pointed and said, 'lion sleeping', it was sooooo cute. Next we went and saw the elephants, and he seemed shocked at how big they were, but recognized them immediately. We went and saw the tigers next. This is actually a really cool display because one wall of the tiger enclosure is made of glass and they seem to like to hang out there, so you get incredibly close to the tigers, like about 3 or 4 inches away through the glass. There was a female and she was lying down and a male who was pacing sort of anxiously back and forth in front of the glass. Thomas was asking if they were Mommy and Daddy tigers, so I looked and little closer and pointed to the one that was pacing and said 'Daddy Tiger' and to the one lying down and said 'Mommy Tiger'. He repeated this several times, another outrageously cute moment.

We walked around a bit more and then I decided to take him to the Children's Zoo section figuring he could get down and run around a little bit more in there. First we did the little nature walk thing and he had a good time splashing in puddles and running around on the little trail. Then I took him on the other side where they had a "Birds of Prey" exhibit which was totally cool. He could get pretty close to the birds since they didn't have wings and just sort of sit on these perches about 6 feet or so from where you are standing. Of course, he liked the owl best, since he knows what those are also from a couple of his books. That's when he started wanting me to lift him up at every exhibit so that he could see better. I held him while he watched the owl. It was very vocal which was cool. I had Thomas make "whoooo whoooo" noises at it and he seemed to get a kick out of it when it made those noises alson. From there we checked out some turtles, where Thomas met a little boy that he decided to hug and kiss. Fortunately, most parents think his hugging and kissing are cute, so, as long as they seem okay, I let him give the children one hug and one kiss and then make him come along. Outside of that exhibit there was a sculpture of a turtle that was made for the children to play on. He loved that and I finally had to virtually drag him away from it. He kept climbing on and trying to ride it.

From there we went to the petting zoo. Frankly, he's a bit young for this exhibit, because he doesn't get act the way he should. He was a little rough with one of the sheep. And, at one point, they have these brushes so that the children can brush the goats, he threw his brush into the duck pond. Fortunately it floated, so I was able to reach in and grab it, but I was a little bit embarassed. It was a cool little farm area and he seemed to really like all the farm animals walking around. We were able to go into the barns and see the animals there and they had a horse and a cow and tons of roosters. There was lots of interesting information, but I couldn't read it because I needed to keep an eye on Thomas. Finally, I got him out of the petting zoo and took him to a shady spot where I fed him lunch and applied sunscreen, worried that I'd already waited too long, but he seems to not be burned today. Then we left the Children's zoo and headed over to the playground. I helped him swing on the swing and slide down the slide and we had a good time. After lunch and play I figured he'd be pretty tired, so I took him to the Leaping Lemur cafe and got him some milk and myself a hot dog and found a quiet little spot in an outdoor theater that they only use during the summer months. I thought I'd give him the bottle and then let him take a little nap there.

No luck with that. He was WAY too wound up for a nap. So I finished my hot dog and we got up and kept going. I should add here that I was very relieved that he seemed to be pretty cooperative whether sitting or walking. When he was walking he pretty much stayed with me and when he would run off I could call his name and he would turn around and look at me. I would say, 'come here' and he would say 'no' and I would starting counting '1....2...' and by the time I got to 2 he would start running back towards me. This was pretty reliable, so it made the whole day more manageable than I would have thought and WAY better than the last time that Emmett and I took him. The only really hard part was getting him into his stroller after he'd been walking around because he didn't want to be confined (of course).

We mosied over to the lions den again because they were feeding the big cats at 2pm. So we hung out at the cat house thing and waited for a while. It would have been great if there had been benches or something because I was getting a bit tired by then. No such luck. They did the big cat feeding and Tommy seemed to really like that because you're able to get pretty close to the lions and you can actually see them really well and about 10 feet away. One of the younger lions (19 month old female) was playing with this lion toy that was hanging and it was really fun to watch - like watching a 320 poung housecat playing with a cat toy, really and truly.
Tommy got a kick out of that and talked about 'lion toy'. Awwwww.

After the lions we walked around some more. We went to the new Africa exhibit which is very interesting, very nicely done, but still sort of in the process of opening. There will be more animals there eventually and the giraffe house is closed right while the giraffes get used to their new area. You can still see them outside. There are a family of gorilla females, sadly, the male of the family died earlier this year. I think he was the one that the UCSF doctors had operated on. We saw the ostriches and got a closer look at the zebras. From there we did another loop and looked at the koalas, kangaroos, polar bears, spectacled bear. Then we went into their tiny rainforest house and saw the anaconda and the alligator. I don't think Tommy saw or understood the anaconda, but he liked the alligator, which was actually a caiman, smaller than an alligator. From there we looked at rhinos. This one rhino seemed to like us because it followed us all along the width of it's enclosure as we walked by. Then we looked at the elephant again and hippo and the white rhino.

As you can imagine from this recap, by this time I was pretty wiped out. We got in the car at 4:45pm, so it was a FULL day at the zoo. I had been on my feet walking pretty much the whole day and spent a lot of the time hauling around Tommy (who weighs over 30 lbs) and trying to push the stroller at the same time.

We got in the car and drove home and I immediately started making dinner - stuffed pork chops mashed potato pancakes (? - do not try this at home! haha), and broccoli. It turned out to be a pretty yummy dinner and earlier than our usual time. We put Thomas to bed early, since he hadn't had any nap other than the 15 minute nap he took while we were driving home from the zoo.

Emmett and I laid on the couch and watched a National Geographic special on Mayan archaeology, it was great and reminded me of what a great trip I had to Belize and Guatemala back in 2000. I must get back there one of these days.

Well, better run and check on that boy. He's still a little bit congested, so I have him some Benedryl before his nap, hopefully it will keep him sleeping long enough for me to take a quick shower, haha.

Love,
Melissa