Today, my friend Chris and his baby Naomi came over, like they do every Tuesday. We were all having breakfast when Chris asked when I wanted to go to the zoo. He and his wife recently joined as a couples membership and they’ve been taking Naomi whenever the mood strikes. I said, “Let’s go today!” So we loaded up in our car, with our two carseats and took the babies to the zoo.
The first exhibit is the flamingo exhibit. In Albuquerque they have to put some special kind of dye in the water to make the flamingos pink because they’re not getting enough pigment from the food they eat. Seamus thought they were pretty cool. Then we went to the monkeys, which he really got into. I think he recognized them as cousins. Or maybe it was because I dressed him in a monkey outfit for the zoo.
The howler monkeys had a baby. A group of Spanish speaking young people were walking near us and started talking about the changito, and I was once again reminded about all the different words there are. You see, I had been telling Seamus they were monkeys/monos–another word for monkey.
Then we walked through the big cats area. Both babies were intensely interested in the ocelot and at the tiger pen, I picked Seamus up out of his stroller so he could see. The tigers kind of got into it–one needing to reassert his dominance over the other. They scuffled and the bigger tiger took over the smaller tiger’s primo seat in the shade. Then they didn’t move for a long time. Seamus thought the talking tigers were fascinating.
After all that excitement, he fell asleep before we got to the giraffes, elephants, and gorillas. Next time. There will be a next time because I cannot deny him the fun times he was having today. He put off his nap for as long as he could because he was enthralled with all the animals and their antics.
Would you like to see a picture of a very smiley baby? (Who is almost one and therefore not a baby but a soon to be little boy!)
Academic Leigh Speaking 