At the zoo (again)

With James's temporary night shift, it's best for everyone if I get the kids out of the house in the morning so he can sleep and they don't have to be unnaturally quiet.

Today, we went to the zoo, hoping to beat the rain (which showed up an hour early, darn it!). It was otherwise perfect weather, though. High 50's, overcast, and no real wind chill. With the looming storm, the zoo was practically empty compared to what we're used to, allowing me to relax a little and let the kids explore with a bit more freedom.

I originally planned to let the girls feed the giraffes again, but when I realized I did not have my camera, I decided against it. I want Connor's first up-close-and-personal to be caught on film. Besides, it started raining at 11, when the feeding was scheduled to start.

We had lots of unique moments thought:

We went to see the lions first, on our way to the giraffes. The lionesses were not in their usual nap spots, but closer to the viewing platform, chewing on the bones from their breakfast, allowing us a great view of them. I pointed them out to Connor and when I said "see the cat?" he became rather alert and sat upright in his stroller to try and see what I was pointing at. Once he saw them, he excitedly began saying "Ta! Ta!" and even waved at them. Too sweet.

The zoo has a spot in the children's park where you can climb through a tunnel and poke your head out in the middle of the prairie dog exhibit. The girls and I took Connor into one and happened to see a prairie dog hanging out, digging inches away from our faces. It was pretty cool and once again, Connor was super excited and kept banging on the plastic.

At the chimp exhibit, one of the chimps sat beside the large window in the viewing house and was responding to the people he saw. One kid clapped his hands and the chimp mimicked him. Cue several minutes of kids clapping and laughing as the chimp clapped his hands and then clapped his foot and his hand and made goofy faces. Of course, he abruptly got fed up with the attention and attempted to roundhouse kick one of the little girls. He only kicked the window, of course, but it certainly scared her.

Once past the chimp place, we wandered toward the elephants (with a visit to the African drums the little play village first). I had received an email from the zoo and learned one of the elephants is pregnant and due any day now! We happened upon a moment when they allowed the pregnant elephant's 3-year-old to spend some time with his older brother, where he will spend most of his time once the new baby is here. Initially, I thought they were fighting over territory, since that male elephant has always been alone, but the zookeeper set us straight and we watched the two brothers wrestle and play. Then the zookeeper pointed out the pregnant elephant. I'm excited to take the girls back when the baby is here. We were told that, barring any health issues, mama and calf will rejoin the herd within days of birth, so when the time comes, we'll get to see a newborn baby elephant!

Of course, when pointing to the pregnant elephant and telling them there was a baby elephant in her belly, just like I'd had a baby in my belly, the girls assumed all the elephants were pregnant because their bellies were so big.

Oh well. Maybe next time we go to the zoo we'll have pictures of the baby elephant and pictures of Connor feeding the giraffes to share all at once. ;-)

Cleaning Our Room

According to my new weekly chore schedule, Tuesdays are the day we focus on getting the bedrooms cleaned. So, after lunch, the kids and I locked ourselves in their rooms and got them vacuum-ready (I'll be tackling my room later this evening when James isn't sleeping). I think the girls have too many toys, but since they play with most of them, I haven't bothered with sorting through them. Undoubtedly, they'll lose several once I start cleaning things out for our upcoming move (which has no details beyond "we're moving out of this house sometime before the end of summer, we hope").

The girls like to play more than clean, so it requires me sitting in their room frequently directing them what to pick up, but in the end, it does get done. 

Connor likes to play while the rest of us clean

Megan and her crazy hair. It gets combed every day, I swear.

Connor's way of helping sometimes results in tears from the girls.

Cadence's hair! I gave her bangs and it just transformed her, I swear.

And, to end it all, we got a little video of Connor's run-before-he-can-walk routine. :-) I know how much a certain reader of mine (Hi, Lynne!) loves videos of her cousins.

Another "first"

For the past month or so, Connor will eagerly bounce and point out every cat he sees and chatter at me. Over the past week, I've come to a realization... he's saying "Taz". Of course, to him "Taz" is the general word for "cat", since that's the cat he sees 9 times out of 10. Poor Hanna has been labeled as "Taz" in his little brain, but we'll rewire that later.

Just like his oldest sister, he is fascinated by the creatures and will chase them down. He's actually a fair bit nicer to them and will attempt to pet Taz on her head, which almost looks like he is smacking her, but not quite. As always, she is incredibly patient with his less-than-gentle affection.

So, his first word beyond "mama" (because he's been using the mama sound to indicate he wants me or my attention. Usually while crying, but he'll use it without crying on occasion as he comes to find me).

Actually, this morning, when he saw her, he kept saying it "Tda! Tda!" (The t sound is a little harder than the normal t sound, a cross between a t and a d). When she complied and hopped up to visit us, he got super excited and said "Ha Tda!", which I can only assume means "Hi, Taz", since "Hi" is another word I have suspected him of knowing due to my habit of greeting him with an enthusiastic "hi!" every time he wakes up from a nap or I return from running and errand, etc.

So, I guess we also get to claim his first two-word sentence? Kidding... ;-)

First Steps

I was right. He can do it.

For the past couple weeks, Connor has been cruising as much as possible, even using the walls as hand holds to avoid crawling. He'll crawl from the couch to the wall, get to his feet and walk along the hallway to get to his room. I've been avoiding the urge to grab him and shake him and say "walk already!" (Okay, so I only resisted the shaking urge, I've said the words many times).

He's been standing, when he's not paying attention. When I try to stand him in the middle of the room, he'll immediately squat and lower himself to the ground. He's been lifting both hands while cruising, using my hoody string (because it's oh so supportive) as a handhold while bouncing, etc. But, he's been refusing to stand. Over thinking it, or so I've been saying. You can see the wheels turning in his head when I try to get him to stand or walk. He thinks about it, looks around him, considers his options and then plops on his butt and crawls, even though I've been swearing he's 100% capable of walking if he wanted to and have been doing my best to bribe those first steps out of him.

Tonight, though, I finally won the battle of wills. I lifted him to standing, as I've done a dozen times over the past few weeks, while chatting with friends at a small get together, and took my hands away. He stood, squatted, stood, squatted, stood and took a step.

Unfortunately my exclamation of "Ha! I told you!" scared him and he plopped on his butt.

He did think it was pretty cool, though, because he tried it again (twice), but then he got distracted by the toy vacuum cleaner and lost all interest in anything but that for the rest of the evening. At least until he saw the brownie I was holding...