Zoo-rific

Yep. I titled this post “zoo-rific”. If that doesn’t make me a toddler mom, I don’t know what does.

Last week, Evalyn and I had the pleasure of spending the morning at our local zoo with our very best mates, C-Biscuit and Willmo. The weather was absolutely perfect – not too hot but not cold, either.

Neither C or I had been to this zoo before but we were both pretty impressed. It’s not huge – we were able to cover the entire thing (including a longgggggggggggggg, unnecessary detour through no man’s land where there were zero animals) in just under two hours, which meant we got to see everything but not have to drag the kids around for longer than they would be happy.

There was also an awesome looking playground, splash park and ropes course but we didn’t spend any time there this time.

Willmo is a wee bit young to really grasp the full beauty of the zoo, so he just chewed on his hat the whole time, but the girls sure loved it.

It was so exciting for me to see how much Evalyn enjoyed it. The monkeys were first on our path and she was so giddy with excitement. “Yook Mommy! Monkey” and “See it? Touch it? Hold it?” She also quickly figured out that there was so! much! to! see! and didn’t want to waste any time. She would spend a few seconds looking at one animal and say something like “Cute monkey” or “Hold it, monkey” and then look up at me and say, “Okay. Noser [another] animo!” and when we walked past cages that had nothing in them, she’d say, “Uh oh. Nobody’s der!”

The giraffes really excited her which I was happy about since they are one of my favourite things to see at the zoo. She wanted to stretch her neck to make it long just like them and kept asking me to “touch it, hold it”. Unfortunately, her desire to “touch it, hold it” was completely reversed just as soon as she got her wish. These guys were friend-ly! and when one leaned down and licked Eva on the cheek, she flipped.

It was a perfect morning. I love Evalyn’s age, where she is old enough to get excited and enjoy these types of things. The things that I’ve been waiting my whole life to experience with my children.