Lions and tigers and bears, oh my...

I had been dying to take my little one to the zoo. I have been putting it off because I wanted to be sure that he would have the capacity to look at the animals and be excited. This past weekend was so beautiful that my mother and I decided to take him. My husband was not too happy about not being able to be there for his first zoo experience but the day was too nice to pass up.

I got up early and had to do my grocery shopping. My husband wasn't home so I had to take my son with me. When he was small, I was able to put his car seat basket in the front of the cart and he would fall asleep. Now he sits in the cart and keeps me company as I shop. Unfortunately he hadn't napped prior to the trip and couldn't nap during. I was hoping he would go down while I put the groceries away at home and got ready for the outing. He didn't. He was wide awake and playing all over the place. I got him dressed and packed him into the car. By the time I got to my mother's house, I was sure that he had fallen asleep. But when I went to get him out of the car, there he was, eyes open wide.

My mother had some errands to run so I told her we would go along for the ride and hopefully he would fall asleep for at least an hour. He didn't. He didn't fall asleep until we were literally pulling into the parking lot of the zoo.

I tried my best to get him out of his carseat and into his stroller without waking him. I was almost successful but not quite. He opened his eyes as I was strapping him in to the stroller. I laid the seat all the way back and thought he might go right back to sleep but with all of the people and all of the kids around, he was too nosy to drift off. What if he missed something important? He had to take it all in.

When we walked through the gates, the first exhibit was the elephant habitat. The elephants were out and they were eating and standing on display in all of their glory. My son loves his little elephant toy at home so I was eager to see how he reacted. He just sat there. I pointed them out to him and sounded as excited as I could. But he was still in the fog of interrupted sleep. We went on to the next exhibit, and the next, and the next. He showed no interest. He didn't smile, laugh, cry. Nothing.

After we had circled the entire zoo, we wanted to end up at the brand new rainforest exhibit. It had just opened and we were looking forward to it. I peeked into the stroller and his little eyes were rolling back in his head. After that full day he was finally falling asleep. We decided that we would see the rainforest another day and got him back to the car. He was so exhausted that his eyes stayed glued shut while I strapped him into the seat. He slept all the way home.

I was disappointed that he didn't have a good time. Maybe he just didn't like the animals and maybe it was just that his mean mommy didn't let him nap. In any case, I am going to try the zoo again but the next time I will be sure he is well rested.