I get all proactive on grey days

This morning it was grey and not even 70 degrees out when I got up, with a forecast high of only 80. I decided to leap on opportunity and take the kids to the zoo. (I must have slept extra well last night or something, to be imbued with enough energy to even consider such an undertaking.)

Major animals we saw at the zoo:

• Two tigers, reclining
• Five lions, roaming (one Daddy and four overgrown cubs; Mommy must have been having her nails done or something)
• Four orangutans, climbing, swinging, lounging, and playing a computer game, respectively
• Five gorillas, sitting around with their backs to us
• One panda, sleeping
• One elephant, wandering

 

Minor animals we saw at the zoo:

• Prairie dogs
• Macaque apes

Things that were not animals but had to be examined anyway, despite the fact that I had paid $15 to park at the zoo and we only had till naptime to see as much as possible in the way of real animals, and the traffic was bad, as it always is when you decide to drive to the zoo, but anyone who thinks I'm taking my children to the zoo on public transport has a much higher opinion of me than is warranted by actuality:

• Bamboo: "Is that bamboo? Is this real bamboo? Let me just check that bamboo to see if it's real. It is bamboo!" ... etc. Monkey is obsessed with bamboo.
• Pathways to nowhere: "I just want to go up there." "There's nothing up there. Let's go and see the elephants." "But I reeeeeally want to see what's there." "There's nothing there. Fine. Go. I'll wait here."
• Statues of animals: "I think those apes are dead, Mummy." "They're not dead, they're statues. They're made of metal." "But I think they have real apes underneath, like in that other place." "You mean the natural history museum? No, these ones are just statues, I promise. Let's go inside the ape house and see the real ones." "But I want to climb on these ones."
• Toilets: This one was my fault, but as a result Mabel stayed dry all morning. Then she peed in her jeans when she got up from her nap because she refused to sit on the potty. Have to work on that one.

(Bonus quote of the day (overheard from a school group): "There's the ape store!" "The ape house, Johnny.")

Monkey and an (undead) ape