Another Zoo Trip

Yesterday, to celebrate our new-found freedom, Eddie and I joined his grandma, aunt, and cousins for a trip to the zoo. Eddie was unsure of whether or not he wanted to go, telling me earlier in the day, "Not go zoo right now," then later crying "Go zoo!" Luckily, I did not wait for him to make up his mind. We went regardless.

We got to the zoo just before noon and unfortunately, Eddie fell asleep in the car on the way there. This is always a bad thing if we are not on our way home to put him in bed. He does not wake up happy after sleeping in the car. Maybe you can see why:

We were a bit early, so we waited in the car and I let him sleep as long as possible. Then I had to wake him up and get him out. As I suspected, he was very unhappy, bordering on hysterical, when he learned we were actually at the zoo. We sat by the fountain out front to wait for everyone else, Eddie clinging desperately to me all the while. He perked up a little when I showed him all the money in the fountain (he talked about that for the rest of the day), and cheered up even more when his favorite cousin, Sarah, showed up a few minutes later. Eventually I convinced him to sit in the stroller and in we went.

Eddie enjoyed seeing the monkeys and the elephants. He didn't want to stop looking at the baby elephant, so we were there for a while. We ate lunch, then went to see the tigers and giraffes. Even though there were 5 tigers on display and a couple of them were up and moving around, Eddie was more interested in the giant ball floating in the tiger's pond. He happily sat on the tiger statue and said "giddy-up!" while I took his picture.

After seeing the orangutans, we took a ride on the carousel, but I couldn't convince Eddie to actually ride on one of the animals. Instead, we sat on the peacock bench. Eddie seemed to enjoy the ride, but when we got off, he told me he would not ride the elephant next time.

As always, Eddie's favorite part of the zoo was playing with the "black ball" before we left. Of course, I forgot to pack him a change of clothes, so I couldn't let him get too wet. Here you can see how excited he was to splash: