Another Zoo Trip

Laura Joy

• 2 min read

Again... I had high hopes... and no one enjoyed themselves...

Okay, K is the one who did enjoy himself. He's finally to the age of all-animals-are-dogs.

Well, we were studying birds for our nature study, and this book recommended to start with chickens. So I picked the kids up from school on a half day and we went to the children's area of the zoo. It was going to be so fun!

Before I tell you how it wasn't fun for anyone over the age of 2, I have to tell you what a genius idea it is to go to the zoo in the rain. Seriously! It was only barely raining, but because of the rain it wasn't hot! And there wasn't anyone else there! We had the whole zoo to ourselves. We had to bring our rain jackets and umbrellas and get them out every now and then when the rain got heavier, but overall, it was a much more pleasant experience than going in "nice" weather and fighting the crowds.

They have a little "homestead" setup for the children's area, they're growing native crops behind the kids there. It was really cool.

We first looked at the chickens, where there were also geese. Apparently geese are territorial and there were all these signs warning you about the geese. And there's not a good enclosure keeping them in, they're all just roaming around the whole area. Well that was too much for M. She had a huge meltdown over the birds getting close to her. Plus, I was under the impression that there wouldn't be that many mosquitoes since it was the middle of the afternoon. But THAT was wrong. There's this kind of mosquito here that's tiny. I mean, not just like small mosquitoes, which I've seen before, they're like the size of fleas. You don't see them at all until you notice the bites! The poor kids had dozens of bites PER LEG. It was terrible. The teachers sent notes home about mosquito repellant and everything.

I can't remember why she thought that rock was so well-suited for a fierce picture.

It got mildly better after we finished studying the chickens and went to see the desert animals (which I had promised G from last time). But M was just at the end of her emotional reserve with the geese and everyone else was starving. They spent the whole time complaining about why I didn't bring more snacks. Except for K. He just ran between animals yelling "DOG! DOG!" the whole time. He couldn't get enough. Everything the "dogs" did was funny and mesmerizing to him. Maybe next time I'll leave the kids at school and just take K.