The Zoo

One of Danny's crazy former coworkers from his crazy former job had at least one helpful nugget of wisdom to share amidst many more nuggets of craziness, and that was this: if you live in a small (700 sq ft?) apartment without a lot of room for toys, have people get you memberships to cool places for birthdays and Christmas in lieu of the regular loot. I thought this was brilliant. So for this Christmas, the Oregon grandparents got Jack a membership to Cal Academy, which we will hopefully be trying out next week, and the Minnesota grandparents  got Jack a membership to the Oakland Zoo, which we tried out today. It was rainy for the morning and Jack and Ki seemed to be on opposite nap schedules, so it wasn't looking likely that we'd make it out, but I have been trying to go somewhere fun for every Monday and Wednesday since the holidays and have been thwarted every time, so I made up my mind that today nothing was going to stop us, and nothing did. In fact, the rain cleared up just as we got there, and then the light was great for photos.

We first looked at some tropical birds, which I figured Jack would be excited about, but I think they were up too high. Then we stopped at the squirrel monkeys, which were more at the boys' level and they liked that. But really they were most interested in the little playground where they could get out and climb around the giant bugs.



I guess giant bugs are less scary if they don't have faces. There was also a whole bug house that we could've gone in, but it said no strollers allowed and I wasn't brave enough to take two boys into a strange place with no way to constrain them. We'll have to try that when I have Danny along. I think the boys were just as happy to stay outside, anyway. And as long as I could keep Jack away from what were apparently very enticing mud puddles (non-negotiable for a crawler), I was happy, too. When Jack got stuck in a spider web, he was less happy, though.

He has a knack lately for getting himself into situations he can't get out of and then looking at me like it's my fault. Mom! Get me outta here! He loves to crawl under his high-chair and then push it around the kitchen like he's manning a submarine, and then inevitably he'll get himself wedged in between the wall and the table and scream at me for having the audacity to let kitchen furniture get in his way.

Anyway, the zoo was a big hit. We can't wait to go back.