Babies Squared: Boys Birthday Trip: Day 2

And how do you start your first day of sightseeing? With a big ole bowl of Fruit Loops that your mom doesn't normally let you have? You betcha.

And for good measure, a little protein from the freshly made omelet because we have a lot of walking ahead of us. A lot.

And all that walking is in dreary rainy yucky weather. And with somewhat tired and cranky kids, but we're going to stay positive. Very, very positive. We won't be disgusted that we're walking past the St. Louis version of the Okefenokee.

Or some really cool looking and even colder feeling fountain/lake thing.

See how positive we're staying? All smiles here. The smiles are because we think that the big building at the top of the hill is our destination. So we happy pushed on and conquered that hill.

All smiles. We're almost there!

Ha. But that big building turned out not to be our destination. It was another mile or 50 later. And I had to really force the happy to stay on because at that point everyone was whining and I wondered why I didn't spend that airfare on a armoire for our bedroom. But we pressed on, and were incredibly happy to see the building with animals looming in the distance a short while later. We've arrived at the zoo!

If you're not aware, St. Louis has a series of free destinations created when local citizens voted to increase a local tax to pay for a zoo, fine arts museum, science center and history museum. Pretty awesome for a community to support the arts and informal education, I think. But back to the zoo, it's touted in all the reviews I read before our trip as a really good zoo and a young couple I chatted with on the plane the day before agreed. They said it was way bigger than the Atlanta zoo. Ok, then, I was sold. So when we set out for the zoo that morning my expectations were high, but after a freezing Bataan-like march to get to the zoo, I was happy to see any type of living animal. And a bathroom. And a shelter from the cold, albeit temporary.

These animal faces greeted us.

And we went inside for a quick pick-me-up snack and restroom break. I wondered if they thought about the placement of the shark near guest services? Some type of subliminal message not to come ask questions?

We set out to start looking at animals, and immediately G was mesmerized by a specific species' baby....that kid loves a baby. We had to remind him the baby was not part of the display.

But this fat rabbit was! Come here, fat rabbit and let me rub your furry softness!

And sit there and let the kids pet you.

Near the rabbit was this thing. A tree kangaroo or something. My mind is going blank. But aren't we close to it? If this picture could share the scent of the animal you'd understand why being so close was not a good thing.

I made Keith stand there to show you how close we were.

All of the above animals are in a very ammonia-smelling kids zoo section, and G chose to skip the animals for a little bit and go crawl in this tunnel. He was the Bothma sensitive nose, and I can only imagine that he shared my disgust at the smell in this area. Animals are cute and all, but can we not get them to smell better? This is why I am not a zoologist.

We left the kids zoo and set out for a walk into the rest of the zoo. That walk included some quality tantrums, some stern talking to, and a pop on the hand for a certain someone. And then a restbreak to regroup with yet another snack. And then, with blood sugar back to normal, we set off for the insect house. Which.Was.Great! For the next almost hour we played can you find the (insert insect name here).

Peering everywhere.

And even the parents were happy here.

Exploring.

We spent a lot of time in the insect house. And left it to find the butterfly dome. At the entrance to the dome there are a set of double doors that say "please take care to not let the butterflies out", but it might as well say "please don't let the butterflies escape. oh, and your oldest kid is about to embarrass the hell out of you. good luck!".

We won't discuss the incident anymore, but once we recovered we were amazed at all the butterflies around us.

Having had our fill of small animals, we set out in search of small ones.

Someone was very good at spotting tracks.

And we found some big animals, for sure. Can you see them?

Here's a closeup. Anyone else hear Fantasia's music?

We loved this stop, behind my head below is where the three hippos were piled atop each other.

We left the hippos and as we turned the corner, in our path was a wild hyena.

Ha. Just kidding. It's across the usual zoo-moat enclosure, but doesn't this picture make it look as if the hyena is in our path? They are such creepy animals.

At this point the parental animals were tired. Some of us more tired than others because some of us have spent the last few hours carrying the offspring.

While others insisted on bringing at least one stroller on this trip. And this person had an easier time moving a baby from point a to point b, but we won't linger on this topic much longer.

At the top of the hill was the monkey house.

Which we all enjoyed and pointed out. G in particular was really interested in knowing what "those things" was that the male monkeys had, which led to another impromptu modified birds and bees discussion.

This monkey wanted all the other monkeys to know that this rope was his. HIS. Don't even think about getting on it.

We were mesmerized with these evolutionary cousins.

You might think that after the insect house and the monkey house we'd be done with houses. But no, there's more! A reptile house, where we can all get on the ground and be as close as possible to a snake.

And point, of course.

Until we slowly lose interest...

...and just lay down in protest of all this pointing and learning. It probably goes without saying, but I prefer the TheLayDown over TheTemperTantrum.