Afternoon at the zoo

Thursday Peter was sick. He was semi-clingy that morning with a temp around 99. It didn't take long for it to sky rocket. Peter slept all day long. He was mildly better that evening, but went to bed a bit early.

Around 1:00 AM, he woke up. I guess he was feeling tons better, because he woke me up too...pointing to my eye. "Eye! Eye!" I replied "Yes, that is my eye Peter...go to sleep."

"Daddy! Daddy!" He pointed toward a large mound quietly rising and falling. "Yes, that is Daddy." I replied. "Go to sleep!" I added for good measure. Of course he didn't listen. After about an hour and a half of entertaining himself, he finally went back to sleep.

The next day I went to work in the morning. I had a class and an interview I had to take care of. That afternoon, I returned home so William could go to work. We kept Peter home for one more day, because I wasn't absolutely sure he was better. Turns out, he was perfectly fine.

The thing about Peter is that he is not easily entertained. He doesn't watch TV. He doesn't entertain himself. He also tends to be very interested in whatever I'm doing. I have two missing keys on my laptop as proof. After two hours of trying to entertain him, I threw up my hands. Being a beautiful day, I just couldn't bring myself to fight it. So I whisked Peter away to the zoo.

When we arrived, someone was obnoxiously honking their car horn. I imagined a poor mom was trying to buckle up one kid in the car when another escaped and was having a hay day. Peter startled from the noise and refused to get into the stroller, until I made it very clear to him we would go home if he didn't.

We had a great time at the zoo. He giggled at the animals and never wanted to leave any of them - except for the orangutans. He didn't really like them.

I forget what kind of bird, but I liked this shot.

The Tiger was sleeping, and Peter was fascinated by that.

Look Mom - Gorillas!

Come here Mom! You'll never believe it!
LIONS!

A little bit later the two lions got up and walked away. Peter looked at me, bottom lip pouched out and said said "More? More?". He just didn't seem to understand I couldn't get them to come back. By the way - these are two cubs...born in spring of '08!

Another shot - the Daddy lion yawning.
We also got to hear him roar - which was totally awesome!

Watching more animals!

This time he was fascinated with the geese.
They were not so fond of him.

The penguins had just been fed, and were all in the water when we arrived. The keep was finishing up and had just left. When she walked out they started swimming back and forth, doing flips and jumping. Peter had fun chasing them.

The zoo was amazing. The weather was absolutely perfect and the zoo wasn't overly crowded. And since Peter is still learning to talk, I pretty much went where I wanted. Perfect!