Zoo Friday

I missed a blog day but with good reason-exhaustion. Since Sarah did not have school yesterday we took a trip to the Erie Zoo and visited my sister and dad, who live in Erie. We hit the road by 8:45am and made it to the zoo by 10:15. There were about 8 cars in the parking lot and I was a bit nervous the zoo didn't open until noon, or something. But it WAS open and we had a very nice three hour tour, ending with a train ride. My big surprise came when the tiger exhibits were blocked off and we had to take a special detour to see the warthogs. I had just been telling the kids I thought the warthogs were about the ugliest animals I'd ever seen. And as always when I make those kinds of declarations I had to eat my words. Here they are- looking so cute! Look at their front legs! They look like little pussycats!

After the zoo we picked up Julie, my sister, and went to Max and Erma's for lunch. It's after 2:00 now and we're getting pretty hungry. Mistake #1: My 2-year old son had selected an umbrella from the zoo's gift shop as his souvenir. It was raining by this time, but we had a George Costanza parking spot and he didn't really need it. But I let him take it in to the restaurant. An umbrella can be used as a cane/walking stick, baton, WEAPON! He had lost his TV privileges for Saturday by the time we left.
He fell asleep on the way back to Julie's house. Once I carried him out of the van he was reinvigorated. My sister made my dad a plate of food for his dinner and we- Sarah, Jacob and I,- took it next door and sat with him while he ate. The kids like to go there because it's new territory to explore. Jacob came back to the dining table with a slender crucifix and was gesturing with it like it was a dagger. I took it from him and asked him who it was on the cross. He looked at it closely, (and in his defense it was a figure draped with a chasuble.) He answered questioningly, 'Doc Oct?' That is a villain in spiderman who has a number of robotic arms!

We went back to my sister's house and visited for a while longer. We left and had only gone a few blocks when Jacob declared he had to pee. So back we went. Finally we're on the road and the rain was letting up. I had a $5 off coupon for Kohl's. I made a deal with the kids: if it was raining when we got to Kohl's we would just keep going. If it wasn't we would stop. Mistake #2: It was not raining. I only wanted to pick up a sterling silver necklace. Well, of course they were having a sale on about 10 different brands! Lots of shiny, beaded, floppy jewelry to tempt tiny fingers. My husband gets antsy when I stay in any one department of a store for more than five minutes, so I guess I should've expected the same with my kids. Sarah wasn't bad at first. She just had her ears pierce two weeks ago so she was interested in the earrings. There were quite a few ladies checking the jewelry bargains. I started losing it when Jacob swung one of the displays around with a good show of strength. Then a lady was trying to turn one and he was holding it still! The last straw came when both of them started trying to scare me by hiding behind something and jumping out and yelling, 'BOO.' They DID scare me but only when they wouldn't answer me when I called their name!!!

It wasn't too late when we arrived home. Sarah had taken her camera with her and had snapped a shot of almost every animal we saw (for daddy since he couldn't be with us.) So she wanted Tim to see all the animals. When we finally got them both to bed they were asleep within minutes. I told Tim the details of our trip and tried to stay awake to watch my favorite TV show at 10pm, The Soup. I was asleep within minutes. Unfortunately when I awoke at 12:15am I couldn't get BACK to sleep. My brain kept reliving the day but my body was, like I said, exhausted.