Friday, I got the kids up and dressed and packed lunchboxes. Got them all loaded up and strapped in and off to school! After Charlie and I dropped the girls at school, I thought to myself, "Oh boy. A whole day with just Charlie. What are we going to do?" Scary thought.
We just had the house cleaned on Thursday afternoon. I really didn't want to spend the day watching a bored and lonely three year old boy destroy the professionally cleaned look so soon. I decided that since I could 1. Drive and 2. Walk, we could go somewhere and kill some time. Charlie suggested the park. I decided on the zoo. I can do the zoo, albeit only a mild trip. But it has a playground, benches for resting, and no doors for me to have to push or pull open.
I need to go to the zoo anyway because I lost my zoo pass and the kids are going on a field trip with another family on Sunday, but they can't go without a pass. I don't know if I never got my pass in the mail, or if it got lost in the shuffle, but I've never seen it. I can't find it. The only way to clear that up is to go there and admit to the person trapped in the ticket booth that I'm unorganized. So, that's what we did!
I got a duplicate pass for me, and a refund on my parking that I just paid for a moment ago (because parking is included with my pass), and then I purchased a child's pass for Gracie and Charlie. Libby has one. So. Zoo Pass business is done! Mission Accomplished!
Charlie was already enchanted with looking at the various thorny plants and he was having a great time exploring around the ticket booth. We went in and really, anything we see is a bonus because I'm just planning to steer him to the playground area and sit while he plays.
We walked up the entrance walk and he studied the map. He saw a lake on the map and he wanted to go there, which is not far in, so that's where we went. We wandered around the pond and sat on benches here and there along the way. We saw and admired all the ducks. ALL of the ducks! On the other side of the path around the lake, we saw Meerkats and Red River hogs and then we took a side trip up another short path to see the gorillas.
We didn't go far and we walked slowly so that I didn't tire too quickly. This worked well for both of us as it gave Charlie plenty of time to visit with each duck, meerkat and gorilla.
I did torture the poor kid by making him wander through the gift shop with me. I want a soft sunhat that has a neck-shade, and I figured they would have the safari style hat. The only thing they had that was similar was a child sized baseball cap style that had a neck shade. It was $26. Oh well. I'll look around online and see what I can find, or maybe I can add a neck-shade to a sunhat; I'll think about it later.
We were there for 2 hours and Charlie said to me, "Let's go home and get da girls." It was noon and I was done walking anyway, so I said, "Ok. Let's go.". No arguing from me!
We looked at the thorny plants again on the way out. When we got to the space between the zoo entrance and the parking lot we saw a big Coke truck. It had vending machines on it, and lots of Coke workers handing plastic cups to people. They approached us and handed each of us a tasting cup and invited us to have a drink, so we did. Charlie chose Mello Yellow and I had Cherry Coke. I only let him fill his cup halfway, so he probably had 2 oz of pop and I had about 4 oz. It was yummy! Then Charlie was handed a free pair of Coke sunglasses, so he was a happy boy.
By the time we got to the car, it was 12:30. We arrived at 10am. Not bad! We put in a full day before lunchtime! I didn't hear any complaining about being hungry, so we just toodled on home and had lunch there. We got home at 1:30 and had time to have lunch and rest before it was time to pick up the girls.
Felt great to be able to be the kind of Grandma I enjoy being! I took Charlie to the zoo! We had a very fun and special day together. The house is still clean, the kid is happy, all is well!
*Found my zoo pass as soon as we got home. Been searching for it for a month!
Do you just have an extra pass now, or do you have to return one?
ReplyDeleteNo, the lost pass is invalid now. I have a temporary pass until the new one arrives.
ReplyDelete