Let’s Not Have a Fabulous Day at the Zoo

I love a good zoo outing. It’s an awesome time with three children. No one ever says their legs are getting tired an hour into the visit when we’re clear across the other side of the zoo. No one ever says they’re too hot or too cold. No one ever asks for popcorn or hot roasted peanuts when the tempting aromas start filling the air. No one has almost got lost because we thought they were right behind us when in fact they decided to stay glued to the glass partition of the lion cage. No one has ever argued about the path to take when we come to the fork that can either lead to the primate section or the petting zoo area. No one has ever said they had to go to the bathroom when we just asked them 10 minutes earlier and they didn’t need to go and now there is no bathroom in sight.

Yes, as much as I love a good zoo outing, once a year is quite sufficient.

Whenever I get an itch to see some animals in confined areas in between our yearly zoo trip …off to the pet store the kids and I go.

This always proves to be an ideal field trip for a number of reasons:

• No one ever gets tired from walking
• The temperature is always perfect
• There is no tantalizing odors filling the store
• It’s a confined space so the chances of losing someone is minimal
• Bathrooms are easily accessible at the back of the store

There is still the potential for arguments on which animals to see first.

The kids and I went to Petco last week and had a blast.

Bency, the 5 year old, is in love with Seek and Find books so trying to find those lizards and frogs is a virtual Seek and Find book for him.

I gave the older kids the challenge of counting the guppies. After 15 minutes they finally agreed on 163. Cesar, the almost 2 year old can only count to 10, so we stuck to the tropical fish tank for him where there is only a handful of fish to count.

Some of the animals had names and a card outlining their personality traits (shy, friendly, outgoing, curious, needs a lot of attention, calm) and we decided which of our family members they were most like.

The animals that were nameless were given fantastic names by us.

We read some of the books that were there and learned about different species of birds.

We watched a dog getting groomed.

We rounded off our trip by playing with the dog squeaky toys and voting on the best dog outfit. The Superman outfit was Bency’s favorite. The ballerina tutu was Iris’s choice.

An hour and a half after we had first arrived we were on our way out the exit door. We said good-bye to the clerks, the dog who had just arrived with his owner, and the joy of having not spent a dime, learning a few things and having an amazing time!