I don’t know why you read here, and I hope you don’t either because, my word, my 2023 blog posts have been all over the map. Literally.

In January, a house tour in Australia. In February, a book review about Mennonites kidnapped in Haiti and another book review about parenting and brain science.

Let’s not get off track here in March, shall we? 🙂

How about a trip to the zoo . . . Emmett’s first zoo trip. Sebastian’s, too. Even Alec’s first time, although I probably shouldn’t be admitting that. A child not going to the zoo till they’re five years old? When the zoo is literally less than an hour away?

I think we kept saying, Let’s wait till he’s old enough to appreciate it. And then another baby brother would come along, so we’d say, Let’s wait till he’s old enough to appreciate it. And pretty soon, another baby brother came along, and we finally just went.

We got there around 10am and found the on-site parking I was praying for. I remember going to the zoo when I was little and having to take a shuttle from a parking lot further away because the zoo parking was full. The boys would’ve liked the shuttle, but I was glad to not have to mess with it.

The first animal we saw was the faithful old mountain goat near the entrance. It was kind of fun to go back to the zoo I’d gone to as a little girl, this time with all my boys and Eric, who had also never been to this particular zoo before.

We skipped the first area in favor of going to find animals we were more interested in, but then we were suddenly at the train, and I was buying tickets, and our boys were overjoyed. I hadn’t told them there was a train to ride on cause I wasn’t sure it’d be running.

One animal in, and already on the train. 🙂

We saw our second animal from the train, an elephant that I said was little and Eric said was big. We never got close enough to it to decide who was right.

The train ride was very short, a little six-minute circuit, but the boys loved it. The train station was right near a coffee shop, so after two animals and a train ride, it was time for coffee and caramel popcorn.

So much for going to the zoo to see the animals. 🙂

Armed with coffee and popcorn, off we marched, up the hill, to see the . . . carousel. Oh boy.

We weren’t about to do another attraction without seeing at least a few more animals first, so we promised the boys a carousel ride later on.

We saw a beautiful tiger and a few other animals, but guess what Alec was thrilled to find? A stand of bamboo. He wanted to take a picture in it. 🙂

Then we rounded a corner, and stretched out before us was Sebastian’s version of a paradise. A massive sand pit teeming with . . . bulldozers. And excavators. And all manner of things excavation equipment.

A huge sandbox, that was Sebastian’s dream come true. We let the boys play for a little while but agreed later that we should’ve let them play even longer because when it came right down to it, the animals were only part of the fun for them. A fairly small part, to be honest.

It was slightly humorous to watch other parents trying to lure their kiddos away from the sand, knowing full well that when it was our turn we’d be using some of the same lines. 🙂 Let’s go see some more animals!

Who needs animals when you have the sandbox of every kid’s dreams?

We did eventually keep going, and we found flamingos and fish. The fish were Alec’s favorite part, along with a penguin a little later who swam underwater and seemed to be waving at Alec right by the glass. 🙂

We saw a little alligator, a few monkeys, a very neat porcupine, some sleeping polar bears, some sleeping lions, a bunch of birds, and more. The giraffes were not sleeping, and it was fun to see them walking around. So gangly and awkward. I always thought giraffes were kind of graceful, but when you actually watch them walk up close, it’s kind of funny. My favorite animals were the rhinos . . . or maybe the tiger . . . or that funny little porcupine.

It was getting to be long past the boys’ lunchtime, and things started to go downhill fast. Sebastian wanted to go back to the sandbox. Alec wanted to buy a flamingo bubble-blower. Emmett wanted a nap but was fairly pacified with a graham cracker, a banana, and bits of caramel popcorn.

I had meant to pack us a lunch, but time got away from me, and we ended up leaving the house without one. Mistake. Yes, there’s food at the zoo, but there’s also long lines of people who also didn’t pack a lunch. Thankfully we were about ready to leave anyway, so we decided to just get lunch on our way home.

We did have a carousel ride to attend to first though, and that put smiles back on the boys’ faces, momentarily at least.

Then we joined the exodus of other parents with wailing children, and that was the extent of our zoo trip. Eric and I decided we’d come just for the train and the sandbox and the carousel next time. 🙂

In which case, we’ll just skip the zoo altogether and go to Long Beach instead! Long Beach doesn’t have a train, and the carousel might be a thing of the past, but it does have sand, and lots of it.

At least now we can say we’ve taken our children to the zoo. 🙂