Summer's Last Hurrah

The days of Fall are upon me, and I'm feeling rather melancholy. As the years pass, I find myself less welcoming of winter than when I was younger. I think it stems from being pregnant and feeling horrible for two recent winters, and the brou-ha-ha that accompanied the storm, B#&%h, when K's room was destroyed by the tree. Nonetheless, I relent to the passage of the seasons and try to look at the silver lining - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, my kids joyfully playing in snow, and all the wonderful things that Fall and Winter allow! So, for what looked to be the final warm day of Summer, we took a jaunt to the zoo to say, "hello" to the animals.

My little Caterpillar Girl (a nod to The Cure)

Our first animal encounter of the day was the Jaguar, who had just been served her morning snack of a whole, raw chicken. K was mesmerized, as was I, simply because she was only 2 feet away! I expected her to tear into the chicken, though she seemed to really savor it, licking and nibbling it! K nixed the offer I gave to make her a raw chicken for lunch.

K wasn't entirely comfortable with the bear pressing against the glass right next to her! We lucked out with this encounter as well: K spotted the little cave next to the bears that houses a window to peek inside their den. I held her up to see inside and she claimed it wasn't a window because you couldn't see anything. That's when I pointed out to her that the reason she couldn't see anything was because there was a bear laying directly in front of it! We decided to wake him up, and began yelling, "wake up, Bear!" Lo and behold, after about 30 seconds of yelling, he popped up and scared us to death! We decided that we woke him up, but I didn't mention to her that the staff was dropping in their snacks and new limbs at the same time! The highlight of this visit for K was one of the bears going potty right there on their rock! We witnessed some pretty outstanding things this time around: along with the Jaguar eating, the Bear swimming / eating / playing/sleeping/going potty, we saw the flamingos actually moving around their habitat, and the baby gorilla playing as any other toddler - crazy!

After the zoo we hit the playground where T got his turn on a much larger slide than usual and LOVED it!

Two cute K stories this week:

K was talking to G and he was repeating everything back to her in song. She was getting annoyed and asked him what he was doing. After he replied that he was singing her story, she said, straight-faced, "I'm not telling you a story. We're having a conversation."

Today she asked me to help her find her "Disneyland Buddies" (action figures of Disney characters). I told her that I didn't know where they all were, but that T had Eeyore in his room. She said, matter-of-factly, "No, Mom. Eeyore's not a Disneyland Person. He's a One Hundred Acre Wood Person."

The kids' new game: playing in the drapes