Staten Island Zoo; or, Still Waiting

Lately, Clio loves all things water. Swimming is her very favorite activity, she loves to stomp in puddles, and washing her hands has become an obsession reminiscent of OCD. This morning, thinking about fun things to do on a holiday weekend when you're stuck in town waiting for a baby to come along, Dave offered her two choices: The Aquarium or the Zoo. She chose the Aquarium. Twice. She also chose the "fishies" and the "ray," the latter of which I think Dave was bringing out to scare her off the aquarium (remember the last trip?)

But Dave took no stock in this answer, and we went to the Zoo.

So where did we spend most of our time there? In the aquarium, saying hello to the fishies. The big fishies and small fishies and mommy fishies and baby fishies, and the big green fishy who opened his mouth "like this" (at which point Clio demonstrated the open wide, pop closed, open wide rhythm of the big green fish.) The Tropical Rainforest and Jungle are both branches off of the central aquarium, and we kept bringing her in to each, thinking she'd really want to see the "cats" (leopards and servals) and monkeys, but she kept circling back to see the fishies.

Outside, she was content to watch the river otters for quite some time, which makes some sense as they are excellent little swimmers.


On our way to the Kiddy Korral, she even stopped for quite a while to check out this empty pool of water,

which was, apparently, much more interesting than the bantam chickens and rabbits that were right behind her. (She did, eventually, with some coaxing, give them a chance.)


She also had a heck of a time feeding the ducks, but we didn't capture that on film.

The Kiddy Korral is basically a petting zoo, where you can buy rye crackers to feed the goats, donkeys, and llamas.

The animals were hungry.


Clio thought it best to get herself up above their reach, letting Daddy do all the work while she observed.

I think the very best part of her day, though, was washing her hands in this industrial sink.

Unlike at home, where she needs to stand on a step stool, she could walk right up to this thing and get to the soap "by all myself," and reach down into the basin for splashing.

We had to tear her away.

Incidentally, if you're wondering how I'm doing, well, I'm still waiting. As we were leaving, another mom passed by and we exchanged smiles. Then she said "looks like you're going to have that one before you leave the zoo!"

(To be fair, I am wearing a broad horizontal stripe shirt which emphasizes the fact that I am 41 weeks along, and counting.)


As for her comment? Well, no such luck. Dave is now really interested in having the kids share a birthday, so we're going out for lobster tonight. It worked on Clio!