Quick Before I Get Sidetrack'd

Earlier this week Little and I were invited to visit the zoo with my friend Lindsey and her son. We had never been to our local zoo and were excited about the opportunity to go.

At first, Little wasn’t sure what the whole point was. We pulled the strollers up to the first exhibit of monkeys (gibbons, actually) and the waterfall at the front of the enclosure caught Little’s attention right away. It took her a few minutes to figure out that we were pointing to the gibbons, but once she did she pointed and grinned as they swung around and played.

There is currently a butterfly house set up in one area of the zoo. Little really enjoyed seeing the flowers and watching the butterflies flutter around and fly right past her face. I thought it was neat to see all of the different types of butterflies and the beautiful colors and wing patterns. It is amazing the variation God created on something as small as the butterfly.

Most of the time Little seemed a bit ambivalent toward the animals; she would point to them, but she doesn’t really identify them yet. She did get excited when she spotted the animals in their habitats and would point and smile.

One of our favorite exhibits was the polar bears and sea lions. The habitat is set up where you can see the bears from outside (like a standard exhibit) but there is also a building you can enter and view them through floor to ceiling windows. The windows look into the pools of the habitats of both the polar bears and sea lions; you can see the animals up close swimming and diving and playing.  It was very neat to see them so close. Little really enjoyed watching the sea lions play because she could see them well as they swam back and forth across the viewing area.

We saw all manner of animals from flamingos to butterflies to tigers to bears to elephants. It was fun for me to see the animals but more so to watch Little’s face light up as she discovered new things.

For my loyal readers: Thanks for continuing to stop by the last few weeks while posting has been so light. I’m hopeful that I’ll be posting more regularly again before long, but I think it might take a few days to get back into the habit.