Wordless Wednesday: A Day at the Park

Waiting for a breeze.


Coming down!

Hi Mom!

In search of more Wordless Wednesdays? Head over to MomDot and peruse some folks with more camera talent than me.

And don't forget about Show me the Funny tomorrow at The Bowl!

Take a Ride in the Livestock Trailer!

We went to pick Orangutan up from O.A.T. today and it was business as usual until we were on our way home.

O: Hey Mom! Do you know what we did at school today? We were working on feeling and hearing!
ZK (that's Me!): So you are talking about your senses this week huh?
O: Yup! I was in Ms. S's group and we were working on hearing. So we listened to pennies and paperclips and blocks and all kinds of stuff.
ZK: Wow! That sounds like it was a lot of fun! So did you drop them or bang them together or what?
O: No they were in boxes and we shook them and had to figure them out by their sounds.
ZK: That's really neat Mo!
O: Do you know which one didn't make any noise?
ZK: No which one? (Please note that I am thinking maybe the teachers put cotton balls in one!)
O: The gummi worm one! But it wasn't one of our gummi worms like we eat. It was one like we went fishing with. But it wasn't making any noise because I think he was asleep. Or dead. He could have been dead.
R: (piping up from the back seat!) Mo! We don't squish worms or poop!
M: Oh no! Not dain! (that's "not again" to all non Marmoset speakers.)

Mom Tip #13

Another trip back to the archives friends.

When planning a major project, allow enough time to do it twice - especially if your children are helping.

I think you can probably guess where I am headed with this.

See, I just built a flower bed in my backyard and planted about 40 flower bulbs in it. In the spring it should be a delightful burst of purple, white, yellow, red, pink, and blue. The flowers should bloom in sequence; crocuses, daffodils, tulips, irises, and a few other cute little frilly flowers in between. They should be in neat little rows so that one is sprouting as one fades away.

That is if the boy and the dog didn't get all the way down to them.

I'm sorry. Did I forget to mention that I had help planting my flower bed? Did I also forget to mention that in the middle of it Meghan decided to have a total meltdown forcing me to leave a shovel behind while I went inside to tend to her? Silly me! To think that something as interesting as a trowel would stay where I put it! And even sillier to think that the smell of turned over dirt was not a lure for two year old boys and their dog.

So after replanting my now indistinguishable bulbs we went to the nursery to get mulch to cover the flower bed to prevent another "re-landscaping." By the way, cypress mulch is also irresistible to young boys and dogs so make sure you have them on hand for the spreading (and re-gathering) when it is time.

Not only will you be interrupted during major projects but more than likely you will be re-doing your projects at least once before they reach finalization. Just a Mom Tip from me to you!

A letter from the Zookeeper

Dear Zookeeper Sisterhood,

Please treat visiting Zookeepers In Training (henceforth referred to as Z.I.T.'s) with great care. I was hostess to a Z.I.T this weekend and I fear that I may have popped her.

My Z.I.T was holding up quite nicely to the craziness that is Zoo Suburbia in spite of Marmoset's determination to keep shoes on her feet regardless of what Zookeeper and Z.I.T. were doing when her shoes fell off. She was even beginning to speak Rhino with a fluency reserved for those of us who are in daily contact with him. Orangutan was at school but was so delighted to have the visiting Z.I.T. that she was on her best behavior and was containing her climbing antics to the exhibit closing routine.

Then the zoo began to reveal the ugliness that lies behind the solid wooden fence between exhibits. It began with Rhino's recounting of the debris I had just removed from his attire. "That looks just like a rocket ship! Coooool!!" I think the Z.I.T. might have considered tossing her cookies.

The following day we loaded the livestock trailer and visited Zoo Atlanta. I believe the Z.I.T. referred to it as herding cats on high levels of catnip. The Orangutan chose this moment to share her whine settings and Marmoset gave a lecture on The Effects of a Missed Nap. Rhino shared some delightful tips on How to Aggravate an Orangutan because he certainly couldn't be left out.

My Z.I.T. was holding up fairly well after an evening of rest but then I tested her skills to the limit. It was the trip to the food procurement center that did her in I believe. The Rhino chose to do some unsupervised investigation of the center, the Orangutan was back to her normal swinging from anything that was still and Marmoset was about to launch into her lecture on the Effects of Missed Meals. Did I mention that after arriving back at Zoo Suburbia, the Rhino thought it perfectly acceptable to start channeling his alter ego The Nudist?

Add to all of this that Z.I.T.'s have not developed the mutant antibodies that act as a Zookeeper's medical Armor All and she was starting to catch a bit of an allergy induced cold, and my Z.I.T. popped.

So let this be a lesson to you, my Zookeeper Sisterhood. When handling a Z.I.T., use extreme caution. Especially if your Zoo is one like mine. As a fellow Zookeeper once said, "Some quality time with my Zoo and your eggs will refuse to hatch!"

Sincerely,
The Zookeeper

A Note from the Zoo

{from the Orangutan}

Dear Zookeeper,

Well, it appears that O.A.T. is going to be a lot of fun. So far I am enjoying my tour immensely even though it's only been a few days. However, I do have a few concerns.

I am having a small issue with the tour hours. It seems to me that tour preparation really should not start until the sun is actually up. The notion of rousing from my comfortable sleeping arrangement before the sun has even started to appear in the sky is very disagreeable. Marmoset and Rhino may continue to begin their days at that hour if they would like but I would prefer a delay in the tour.

Along the same lines, I am finding my closing hours to be inconvenient as well. It is simply not right that my exhibit should be closed before the sun has gone down as well. I will continue to make enough ruckus to keep Rhino and Marmoset awake if I am forced to close my exhibit at these early hours.

I greatly appreciate the dietary supplements you have been sending with me to O.A.T. I think you will find that bringing additional supplements with you when you come to retrieve me will also aid in a smooth transition back to the zoo. I find it completely unfair if the Rhino and Marmoset have supplements in the livestock trailer and I do not. Thank you for your particular attention to this detail.

In regards to O.A.T. in particular. It would be wonderful if you would cease the incessant interviewing. I think you may have noticed that I disengage my memory as soon as I arrive at the livestock trailer so it is pointless for you to continue to interrogate me every afternoon. Eventually I will remember what you would like to know and will volunteer the information at that time. But I think we can all agree that the interview is pointless at this time.

And finally, I would like to share a little about the Male Orangutan I have befriended at O.A.T. I understand that it doesn't make very much sense to you why I would befriend such a character. After all he HAS disrupted my resting period once and pushed me down on the exercise yard the second day. However as I explained, he did express sincere remorse at his behavior and I felt it only appropriate to give him the benefit of my friendship. Please accept my decision.

Thank you for my touring opportunity. So far it has been a delightful and enlightening experience.

Sincerely,
Orangutan.

Mom Tip #35

Prepare for Armageddon and be delighted with a Cat 3 hurricane!

We have all taken our children to a doctor’s visit or the dentist or the hair salon right? I try not to take all three if only one is being seen. That should go without saying! Why would you take a rainstorm with you on a picnic right?!

Magoo had her first dentist appointment this morning. I was anxious to begin with but I thought that since it would be just the two of us all would go well. And that was holding until Daddy came home from work last night.

A. No med form that I was supposed to have completed before I got to the office.
B. He was going to have to be at the office at 8 and the appointment was at 8:30. This means I’m taking all three with me. Anybody else’s blood pressure rising just thinking about it?

My hair voluntarily fell out in clumps to spare me the pain and energy it would have required to pull it out.

So I started preparing last night. Do Mo’s hair right out of the tub so I don’t have to do it in the morning. Pack Daddy’s lunch tonight so I don’t have to pack it in the morning. Prep the coffee tonight so I can just flip a switch in the morning. Have a mental picture of all the clothes that everyone is going to wear so that I can just grab them and go. Pack juice cups and tuck them in the fridge. Bag up animal crackers and drop them in the diaper bag. Make sure we have the school form for the dentist to sign.

You would have thought I was taking an all day trip to the zoo not a 2 hour trip WITH the zoo.

Going out the door this morning everyone got to grab one quiet toy to go with the extra books Mom grabbed for entertainment. I left with plenty of time (since now I have to try to fill out a medical form with 3 dancing children around). I even wore my khaki green shorts because I just knew I was headed into war!

And it went off without a hitch! Mo was a trooper and was cooperative the whole time. The hygienist and the doctor were incredibly impressed with her. {We’ll see if they keep that opinion when we start fixing all the work they found!} Tuck and Munch played and watched the fish without incident. They got a little cranky right before we left but they were easily bribed with animal crackers. I even gave a bag away to another mom who forgot hers.

Now imagine if I hadn’t been that prepared? Oh yeah!! Then you KNOW that things would have gotten ugly in a hurry. But instead of the end of the world (or at least my children) I got a small hurricane.

And get this! I wasn’t even a Girl Scout!!

Mom Tip #27 - Cheap Entertainment

Believe it or not, good entertainment now comes pretty cheap.

Take this scene from last fall.

Ingredients:

1 72 gallon blue Rubbermaid tub
1 6 foot neon orange jump rope with wooden monkeys for handles
1 Red Radio Flyer tricycle
1 3 year old boy
1 4 year old girl; and just for good measure
1 very hyper Jack Russell Terrier.

Take all of the above and put them at the top of a hill. Insert boy in tub holding one end of the rope. Allow girl to tie the other end of the rope to the back of the tricycle. Place girl on tricycle which is backed up against the front of the tub. Pose dog in attack pose in front of tricycle. Let go and allow gravity to do its thing.

End result. Tricycle holding girl starts down the hill at a rapidly increasing pace. Dog attempts to bite front tire and gets head run over by not one but 2 wheels. Tricycle comes to the end of the jump rope and jerks boy out of the tub which was apparently lodged against a rock during loading to prevent premature motion. Said rock was not moved before launch. As boy slams into the pile of leaves in front of the tub (safety first you know!), jump rope is torn from his hands. Bright orange wooden monkey is now carving a glorious arc through the crisp fall sky toward the bullseye on the back of girl’s head. As monkey makes contact girl remembers that tricycle does not have brakes and slams into deck railing.

You may ask yourself “Where’s the entertainment in that?”

They all jumped up and said “Let’s do THAT again!!”