Spring Break, Part 1

Ok, so perhaps the Preschool curriculum is not as tough as, say, Graduate School, but Spring Break is still Spring Break and Jack and I made the most of it. The first Great Outing was to the Zoo. We loaded up with some of our best friends in the whole world and trekked over. Those of you who know me well will not be surprised to find out that I am perhaps the most interested in the zoo out of any random group of kids 2-12. So Clay, Cregan and Jack had some competition in deciding which animals we should see first. Luckily for me, I have by far the best map-reading skills, and have the zoo's layout pretty much committed to memory, so I was able to steer things somewhat the way I wished.

Unfotunately, that did not include avoiding the dreaded Reptile House. I did my best to uphold my cool-Mommy, afraid-of-nothing reputation. It was tough.

Jack was HIGHLY excited (I mean, he is a knight, after all) to hear that there were dragons in residence at the zoo. It was our great mission all day long to find the dragons. Here's Jack riding one that had apparently already fallen prey to some witch or other that turned it into a statue. Somehow this did not dampen the excitement at all, although the boys were all really quite sad when they came face to face with the real thing. Slimy drool, snakey tongue and everything, it couldn't quite live up to their imaginations. The poor thing couldn't even fly, let alone breathe fire. Although they were all quite impressed that it's mouth is so foul it can kill you just by biting you and letting the bacteria take over. We all agreed we would brush our teeth anyway.

Here's Jack reconnecting with some old friends -- the gorillas. They were pretty fed up with the Spring Break crowds by the time we found them, and rarely even deemed to look round at us. Very different from the last time I remember seeing them. It was wintry and the crowds were small, and Jack, about 3 years old and in a stroller, had a very large lollipop, the kind you can only get at fairs and zoos. The Zoo had a young, maybe a year old?, gorilla baby who was playing about in his area. All of a sudden, he caught sight of Jack's lollipop, stopped playing, and came right up against the glass with exactly the kind of look at the lollipop that Jack had had when HE first saw it. I guess some things ALL babies have in common.

Despite dragons and impressively huge, if un-impressively napping, gorillas, all the boys decided, at day's end, and to no one's very great surprise, that the thing they liked best was the "monkeys with the huge butts". Ah well, boys will be boys. We'll try to work in the eco-awareness next time!!