Tempting fate, Shannon and I made plans with some wonderful but too-rarely-seen friends to take our collection of offspring to the Como Zoo today. Our last outing in St. Paul, a Memorial Day party at a friend’s place, was itself tons of fun, but led to three days of horrible sleep and terrible behavior on the parts of the girls.
But an outing to the zoo? On what turned out to be a beautiful spring day? With great friends and their ridiculously cute toddler? We’re in.
But Vivi didn’t get the memo, choosing – instead of having an easy morning of getting ready for the “yong wide” to St. Paul – to throw what even Shannon said may have been her biggest-ever meltdown. (The highlight: half an hour of screaming, “Mama, PUT IN MY WIP [hair clip]!” even though it was already in her hair.) We were thisclose to canceling, but miraculously Vivi collected her manure in time to hit the road. The girls were so tired of making and listening to noise that they were silent the entire ride up.
And the zoo was great. We saw a whole bunch of the big-name animals: giraffes, lions, a tiger, and many kinds of monkeys and apes, including a baby orangutan whom I’m sure never has meltdowns. The girls enjoyed it all a lot, though I think Julia (who pretended to be a snow leopard all the way back home) most enjoyed hanging out with our friend’s baby, who’s practically the prototype of the round-cheeked babbling toddler. And of course the grownups enjoyed talking with each other, at least in the broken-up way that you can when also minding three sets of kids’ feet and hands.
What the girls did not enjoy, though, is posing for a picture. These are the best shots I could get: one of Julia refusing to look toward the camera, the other of the two of them shaking hands with a man dressed like a tooth. (Long story.)
We will definitely have to go back to the zoo soon to see more animals and do some of the other fun stuff, like ride the carousel or explore the conservatory, which was gorgeous.