A Day at the Zoo

Ever have one of those days that doesn’t exactly turn out the way you had planned?  We were going to have a nice, relaxing morning followed by a trip to the library and then a leisurely day of arts and crafts at home.  That was the plan as of 7 am today.  At about 7:05, I got a text from a dear friend of mine inviting us to the Zoo with her, and I thought “yeah, that’ll be fun.”  Here’s the catch – she was going to be there when it opened at 8 (Thank you, Reid Park Zoo, for summer hours!)  Well, it takes about 20 minutes to get there from my house.  So, our leisurely morning turned into a frantic dash – scarf down some cereal for breakfast; everyone get your swim clothes on; pack dry clothes for afterward; sunscreen, water bottles – whoops! those were dirty; wash water bottles; throw kids in the car; drive to the Zoo.  We did get there on time, and everyone had a blast playing in the ‘Kenya Get Wet’ exhibit.  It was totally worth all of the chaos this morning in order to get there.  We love the Zoo and we are frequent visitors (probably at least once or twice a month, but usually weekly).  It is such a wonderful, local resource  - gets the kids out of the house, educational, entertaining, and you can always plan on something interesting to see.  Since we go so frequently, we do try and mix things up a bit though – sometimes I’ll pack a picnic lunch and after going through the Zoo we’ll have lunch in the park; sometimes we do the Zoo backwards (a big deal, and very stressful for my youngest son who has a Sensory Disorder and is on the Autism Spectrum – but sometimes it is a necessary evil); or I will ask the kids to find out what kinds of food each of the animals eats to see if we eat the same things.  Whatever you can do to enjoy some quality time with your kids, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do it!