A day at the zoo. Literally.

Chris had a rare full day off (no fire, no teaching) so we spent the morning all together at the Oakland Zoo.  We've been there numerous times before and it's really not all that big so it's not an all-day activity but with lunch and a few rides it's a couple hours at least.  I knew if we got there when it opened at 10am we'd be able to get through it before Lauren turned the corner of crazy (aka, naptime).  We almost made it but not quite.  She was a hot mess by the time she and I left (we had two cars since we'd met Chris there so she and I left while the big kids and Chris went on to finish the zoo).  Before she hit the crazy wall we had a great time.  I wish I'd taken more pictures.  I actually was so busy paying attention to where I was and who I was with that I forgot to take pictures.  Kind of a nice to not be snapping away the whole morning!

A pictoral summary:

Lauren and Chris while looking at the elephants.  He would ask, "Do you want to ride on the elephant?"  She would say, "Noooo."  He would ask, "Do you want to take an elephant home?"  She would say, "Noooo."  He finally said, "Do you want to kiss the elephant?"  She cried, "Yes, daddy!  Peeeez daddy!"  Then she cried and cried as we walked away making the kissing sound the whole time.  We're so mean, not letting her kiss those elephants.

We took a 15 minute train ride around the zoo which took more than 25 minutes because of this.  Can you see it there on the tracks?  That's an emu that wouldn't move and get out of the way of the train so we just had to creep along as it strutted its stuff in front of us.  For the first 5 minutes it was pretty neat.  After that, not so much...

Lauren and me on the train while we waited for the emu to move.  I see three things in this picture:  crooked glasses, freshly cut bangs that are slammin' because they are so straight (yeah, me!), and the fact that she's smooshing me into next week. 

Chris and the big kids enjoyed the kiddie roller coaster.  Chris will play it off but he really enjoyed it.  Here is proof.

She was the one who asked to go on this.  I knew it wasn't a good idea, I should have trusted my instinct.  She went not even 1/4 of the way around before she absolutely fell apart.  She honestly never recovered.  It was a few minutes after this that she and I left. 

Before we were even out of the parking lot.  I am a SCHEDULE NAZI and it has a thousand benefits but one of the down sides is that my kids are not flexible when it comes to changes in our daily routine.  This was 1:00pm.  If she'd been at home she'd have been down a little before noon for her nap.  That one hour difference made her turn into a crazy girl and really, that benefits no one.  There is a reason for my madness, my crazy attention to the clock with my kids.  It prevents hitting the crazy wall, it prevents restless sleep, and it prevents unpredictability of pretty much any kind in behavior.  

*On a different note, I totally spaced on WTHW last week.  Sorry!  I've gotten a few things from readers/friends of ideas for WTHW.  If you have anything, please pass it along!  Join our facebook page and message me with it.