In our household, a trip to the zoo is not a trip to see the animals.  It’s pretty much just an excuse to eat lots of snacks, play on a few playgrounds and look for thirty seconds at the Rhinoceros before asking to go the gift shop (which, I might add, we’ve only ever done once, so I’m not even sure why he always asks).  

The only interesting things to Brayden at the zoo are the lifeless ones.  The plastic Sea Lion hanging from the ceiling in the Sea Lion Cove, and the stuffed Polar Bears next to the gigantic viewing wall of the real thing.  Maybe if the Polar Bears would ever make an appearance, the fake stuffed ones wouldn’t be so appealing.  

If you live near me, you know how ridiculous the layout of our zoo is.  And so you know what a pain it it would be to walk all the way down to the Baboons and Elephants, only to turn around and walk all the way up the hill again because there’s a scary looking man wearing orange pants looking at the Baboons, so we can’t go near them–and even if he wasn’t there, really there isn’t much interest in the Baboons and Elephants anyways.  Plus, the only reason there was to walk down to see them was so that a proclamation could be made in which a little boy, slumped over, made himself look pathetically tired and looked over at his momma with mischief in his eyes as he said, “I’m tired now.  Can I have a snack?  It will make me feel better.”

Brayden suddenly has had an interest in learning some things.  We have been talking a lot about shapes, and the way in which he says hexagon, rhombus and trapezoid make this ex-math teacher grin with delight.  He can also spell his name now too, which I find fabulous.  

He will be starting preschool in September.  I swear I was just pregnant with him.  Oh wait. . . that was my other child.