A day at the zoo

A couple weeks ago I decided it was a good day to take Simon and his cousin Clara to the zoo. I told this to Simon upon his waking and his excitement was palpable, to say the very least. He was literally shrieking with delighted anticipation yelling "Clara Clara Clara Clara!!! We're going to the zoo with Clara!" As soon as he was dressed he was out the door still yelling, racing to the car.

This particular visit to the zoo was filled with chuckles and cute moments...

When we first got there, they found and immediately coveted what they referred to as "tickets" (they were actually slips of paper that people were supposed to hang onto if they wanted to claim a photo). The kids went up to the volunteers in the monkey building chatting animatedly about their tickets and the animals that were pictured on them. After talking for quite some time, one of the volunteers eventually said, "Oh my, you have very enthusiastic children!" I laughed.

We moved on and quickly realized that it was apparently Amish day at the zoo. Clara was fascinated by this and wanted to know why all these people were dressed so weird. I awkwardly explained that everyone likes different clothes. She stared a lot and I crossed my fingers that she wouldn't say anything in earshot. To her defense, they were EVERYWHERE and they do rather stand out.

Soon we came upon a wishing pond. I gave them each a penny and told them to make a wish. Clara said without hesitation, "I wish that I could meet Justin Bieber IN PERSON!" How funny is that coming from a 5 year old?! Then Simon said in a soft, sweet, raspy voice, "with all my heart, to fly with dragons a land apart." What the hell. I had him repeat it and he said, "I wish I wish with all my heart, to fly with dragons a land apart." This was the first of MANY times that he has since said this, every time in a near-whisper and complete seriousness. So. Stinking. Cute. (Thank you Dragon Land.)

Eventually we made it over to the butterfly exhibit. I was worried they were both going to pee their pants from excitement about this, and I had to stop them from all out running into the building and squashing a poor butterfly along the way. We came across a butterfly that was, unfortunately, the presumed victim of child's shoe, but that meant he was just fine with being held and passed around (in reality he simply couldn't do much to get away). The heat in that building is borderline torturous so we didn't stay as long as they would have liked, but I doubt any amount of time would have really been enough anyways.

I'm sure there were many more moments that day that were cute and funny, but these were the few that stood out and I just plain want to remember them someday....