Family Fun Day at the Zoo*

By Da Mama

"We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you? You can go too, too, tooo. We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo."

Don't know those song lyrics?! Please, give us a call, and we'll sing them to you, loudly, repeatedly, and in unison, for more than one hour. Then you'll know for REAL.

We do love the zoo. And we sure did love our recent Family Fun Day at the Zoo*.

All of Iris' wild expectations were met by a trip on the steam train around the zoo followed immediately with a visit to the elephants. She was the very picture of innocent childlike excitement and delight, her eyes shining and her mouth lit up in a smile all day. She made me so proud because she walked around that zoo for almost five hours on her skinny little legs before asking to be carried. All you toddlers, preschoolers, even school age children in strollers, stand back from the wonder of a small child with leg muscles and endurance, driven by utter intoxication with looking at every animal at the zoo.

Bella was in her element, walking hand in hand with her Iris buddy, with her family, and able to talk, talk, talk to her heart's content. We gave her an allowance for the day of $10 in an attempt to control the begging for money and blind spending. This tactic worked fairly well. She spent her money within the first hour of the trip as follows:
$5.40 - - Twisted stick sucker with small stuffed monkey
$1.50 - - Ride on the steam train
$3.00 - - Ride on the aerial chair ride with daddy
After that, she found herself in the poor house, unable to purchase such luxuries such as Mold-a-Rama plastic animals and entrance to the shark petting exhibit. Buutt, of course, Da Mama and YerTheBestDaddy couldn't resist shifting some of our remaining family funds her way to partake in more fun. All the best laid plans. . .

My favorites are the bears - any kind of bear the zoo holds - black, brown, grizzly, polar. . I gazed at the bears with fond memories of my childhood study of bears, including writing scientific reports about bears. . .outside of school. . . for fun. Yes, I'm the kind of person who as a child wrote research reports for fun. And I still love to stare in wonder at those damn bears. I wanted badly to enter their exhibits and feed them fish and give them big hugs. Those large barriers are there for a reason, I guess.

Daddy soaked in the entire experience and showed his childlike wonder over the Mold-a-Rama machines. Do all zoos have those machines from the early 80s which make on-demand plastic animals? I love those things. Just walking past one of the machines, the faint aroma of burning plastic takes me right back to being a child at the zoo. And I don't think Todd had previously experienced the pleasure that comes with watching that machine make a molded plastic animal figure just for you. He shook his head in disapproval when I stopped to purchase a kangaroo for my own self, but then looked on with slightly more interest when Iris purchased her own koala. But the end of the visit, after the continual sun and fun had turned us all a bit giddy with tiredness and as we were headed for the zoo exit, we spotted a Mold-a-Rama for pink flamingos. Todd face just lit up - Iris' pre-zoo excitement couldn't old a candle to it - and that man needed one of those plastic flamingos. He needed it. But, to his great dismay, the hour of zoo closing had passed, and the machine had been turned off. His chagrin was so great that he actually looked around the machine for some sort of on switch or perhaps the plug was just unplugged? Nothing that easy should have been expected.

The day threatened to end on a somewhat bitter note until Bella chimed . . ."Hey, next time we come to the zoo, let's just put all of our money together and buy nothing but Mold-a-Rama animals. We'll get this flamingo and all the others that we didn't buy today! Don't worry, daddy, we'll get them all!"

Thus we ended our Family Fun Day at the Zoo* with hope and excitement reserved for another trip next summer.

*Family Fun Day at the Zoo is proudly sponosored by Aunt Ali. Aunt Ali is the greatest gift giver in the history of the world. Thank you, Aunt Ali, thank you for our Family Fun Day at the Zoo*!



Sitting in front of a dino we found.

Pouting in front of the Mold-a-Rama

Ruthie with her favorite animal.

Everybody needs a buddy on the train ride.