Toddler Diaries: Off to the Zoo!

Like all kids, our little one loves animals.  Well, really I should say she likes looking at them from far away: once they get too close, she’s kicking and screaming.  We took her to the zoo last year, but she was still too little, so she slept the entire time.   Now she loves watching any show with animated animals.  So I thought it would be beneficial for her to see what they really look like.

She was able to recognize a couple of the animals, but most I had to compare to the characters she sees on the Disney Channel (zebra, cheetah, bear) which she was super excited to see.  One she did recognize was an elephant, which we were lucky enough to see getting a bath.

Right away she recognized the zebra from The Lion Guard on Disney Channel.

They also had a contact yard with goats the kids get to pet and brush.  This is where her attitude started to go downhill. Remember how I said she doesn’t like getting too close?  Yeah, she was not impressed being that close to the goats.  My husband and I bent down to pet them and she FREAKED OUT, yelling “no, no, no!” the whole time. 

Then we took her to the river otter exhibit. There were other kids there with stuffed otters from the gift shop.  They were putting them up to the glass to get the otter’s attention. The photo below was taken about a minute before their tactic worked a little too well.  The otter swam right up to the glass and SCARED THE ABSOLUTE CRAP OUT OF HER. We’re talking she jumped, fell on her butt and cried.  Am I a bad mommy if I admit that I laughed?  Come on, it was funny. You would have laughed, too.

I only wish I had gotten what happened next on video...

Then we took her to the carousel. This was the last straw for this kid’s mood. She loves going high on the swing at the playground, so naturally I thought she’d enjoy it. Holy crap, was I wrong. She screamed bloody murder, shaking, crying, the whole dramatic shebang.

Even on daddy's lap, she was not having it.

Her mood only improved slightly when we took her to the playground next door. At least she slept on the drive home and felt infinitely better when we got back.

We'll definitely take her again next year, and hopefully she won't be such a scaredy cat.