Wednesday, April 23, 2014

To the Zoo with Baby Cole

123/365

Yesterday, I went out and played with my sister-in-law, and my newest nephew, Baby Cole.  Sam, Jake, and I all met her at the Zoo. It had been way too long since we played.  And it was fun to take the littlest ones to the Zoo.

Each one of us picked something that we wanted to see.  Since I just saw my favorites: the butterflies and flowers, last week, I didn't need to choose. Sam chose the dolphins.  Aunt Erica chose Bears and Elephants.  I thought Cole should choose Tigers since his room is in a jungle theme. So we hit the jungle section first.  And the tiger was awake and pacing, right up next to the window.


Jake freaked out. 
I mean, freaked the hell out.  
He was so upset at that tiger.  I realize, unlike his brothers, Jacob doesn't have a cat.  So he gets upset seeing one that is bigger than he is, and one that thinks that a sweetboy would make a mighty great snack. 
And I don't think Erica and I felt bad at all for laughing hysterically at him.  

So we took him to the dolphins. 


Jake appreciated being underneath the dolphin exhibit much more.  I took him out of his seat, something new for him, and over to the glass. That worried him, I helped him touch it, and sat with him.  As long as he could hold on to my bra strap for dear life, he was ok.  He loved the light, and the water, but the actual dolphins swimming by weirded him out a little, ok, a lot. 


Cole was a very mellow fellow, for 3 1/2 months, he thought the water and light under the dolphins were quite impressive, rather entertaining. 


I'm not used to a little blue eyed boy, and Cole's blue eyes were sparkling under the dome.  It was hard to capture on film, but he was very interested and alert.


All our sweetboys.  

After being underneath the dolphins, we went topside for the dolphin show.  It was the Best show we'd seen in a while.  The last few times I'd seen them, the boy dolphins were making trouble and had to go into timeout.  This time they only had 2 dolphins performing, and they did well.  There was a bit of trouble initially, but the trainers gave them a moment, and a do-over, and they recovered nicely.  They jumped all over the place, soaked the kids in the splash zone, which made Sam and Jake laugh, and everyone had a great time.  Dolphins went over much better than tigers. 

Then we traveled around back to the Back 9, the plains area.  The giraffes were out, and were being fed, they'd been inside but it's finally warm enough for them to come out and play. We saw the rhinos, and lions.  As we were walking past the lions, Mrs. Lion began to clear her throat.  


The boys eyes got wide, but just as quickly as she started, she stopped. 

On to the elephants! 


Aunt Erica and Sam sporting their shades.  
Too cool for school. 


The most recent edition to our elephant family was annoying his mama, it was kind of cute.  


Jacob wanted some sunglasses too! 


We stopped for lunch, and Jacob tried something new - squeezey applesauce.  He ate half the package! 
That's entirely new.  I had been working under the suspicion that Jake hated the consistency of all baby food, that's why he wouldn't eat it.  But he did pretty well with this, as long as I squirted it into his mouth.  Maybe he'll eat someday after all.  

After our lunch break, we went into the Butterfly exhibit.   Erica put Cole into her Moby to babywear him.  And he fell right to sleep.  He was so sweet.

With one baby down, and another mildly tolerant, we were able to chase a few of the butterflies around.  
Sam was much better this time than last week when he freaked out like Kurt in Glee when he got touched by a butterfly.   This time, he was just wary, and not getting too close.  So he entertained Jacob and I chased the butterflies. ;) 


A Julia on an Egyptian Star Cluster.


I chased this one Julia butterfly around for a while...or maybe she was chasing me. 


And back outside to the Gardens.  
This is probably one of my favorite places in this town, especially in the spring. 
The hyacinths were still nice and stinky. 


But the tulips had started blooming too. 
They don't stink as good as the hyacinths though.  They just glow with beauty. 


I love this daffodil.  I don't know the name of it, but it's pretty and I want some. 


I got a picture of the boys in the gardens.  At least, I got a picture of the 2 big boys. 


Sam did a good job holding Jake.  Except that Jake wanted to get up, move around, and in general, be crazy. 


Beautiful blooming tulips.  Practically fake they are so pretty. 


Sam tiptoes through the tulips. 
I'm pretty sure I have the same sort of picture of Chris around here somewhere, doing pretty much the same thing. 


The Bleeding Heart.  
One of my favorites.  Turns out it's one of Erica's too. 


Ah, so this is what the gardens look like when No One is there. 


A double tulip.  I love the red and yellow. May need to get me some of these too. 


Lastly, Erica and Cole by the tulips just before the little cued us that we had to go.  


My balancing sweetboy, walking along the pretty tulips.  


Jacob stops to check out the tulip gardens while we wait for Sam to er...powder his nose.  
He loved the bright colors.  


Me too.  



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