Montgomery Zoo!

On Sunday we took Penny to the zoo! She has several books/stories that feature zoos so she was pretty excited when I told her about it. She was so cute when we got there. She kept trying to talk to the animals and then she'd turn to me or Tray and say some variation of, "they can't talk to me," or "they can't say anything." And then when we'd leave one exhibit for the next she'd wave to the animals and call out loudly, "bye-bye flamingos," or whatever animal it was. We went into the day knowing ahead of time we were going to skip her nap. She's been skipping them on her own 4 days a week at least anyway, so we just went with it. And, in typical Penny fashion, even though she was tired from no nap and exhausted from walking around the zoo for hours and hours she stayed awake for the whole trip home from Montgomery. Her staying awake skills are enviable if not entirely endearing.

Anyway. Photos.

This is late in the day when I finally remembered I had a camera with us and started photographing. Posing with Tray by the giraffes:

One where you can actually see the giraffes. And also the big poof ball of hair she now possesses. When her hair is wet it actually hangs to her shoulder blades at least. When not wet, it curls. A lot.

She reveled in getting to walk around without having to hold our hands (unless a maintenance vehicle happened by or something). Here she is practicing her stretching, which she pronounced with a prolonged "streeeeeetch." Also: those capris are from last summer and they are still too big. Sigh.

Penny begged and begged all morning to ride the train that runs around the zoo. It costs extra so we delayed awhile before finally relenting. Also in typical Penny fashion, the object of her desire turned out to be kind of scary in practice. She didn't like the ride much, and especially did not like going through the tunnel where the other children all shouted "Woooo" joyfully whilst passing through. She is still talking about how the train was "too loud."

One thing she did like about the train: she saw the zoo playground and wanted to go there forthwith. We spent quite awhile at the playground. The zoo was packed Sunday because it was so nice outside. There were kids everywhere. Several of them spoke to her and said hi or just smiled and every time that happened she'd come report it to me breathlessly. And then she told me she was going to say hi to some kids herself. I'm not sure that she actually did it, but she had a ball at the playground. She also proved herself to be mostly fearless when it comes to the equipment. She went down the big kid slides several times, even though on the first trip down she went so fast she smacked her cheek making the turn. She didn't even cry -- though part of that is that she will not cry in front of anyone outside of her inner circle unless it is something really bad and part of that was Tray stepping in and distracting her.

Two more shots of her monkeying around on the playground:

We had a really nice family outing. It was a glorious day to revel in. We saw all kinds of animals Penny knows from books but not in real life. They have a little-bitty baby monkey that was super cute. She liked the rhinoceros and overheard a little boy tell his father that there was "a dinosaur" while he pointed to the rhinoceros. So now she's been calling them dinosaurs too. They do sort of look like that. I think it may be awhile before we go back since I think she might get more out of it when she's a bit older. Next on my list though is to take her to an aquarium. Tray and I went to the Flint Riverquarium in Albany a few years ago and really liked it. I think she'd have a blast seeing all the fish.