A Trip to the Zoo

Sometimes writing the blog is a lot of fun and I have a ton to say and other times, it feels like a job. And sometimes I have no time to write. I think a combination of those three has led to my late blog entry. I have two weekends to catch up on...

Last weekend, Ellie had her first year photos taken and I wish I'd had the chance to take some pictures of the scene, but she was totally non-compliant and only wanted to bury her head in my leg, so I didn't get a chance. I don't know what got into her, but she was not excited to be photographed. I have not gotten the proofs back yet, but I'm hoping that we got at least one good one so that we won't have to reshoot. After her picture, we went to Grace's third birthday party. Look at how cute that dress is with the three candles on it. I don't know where Leslie gets Grace's clothing, but she always looks so cute. Ellie ate pizza at the table with all of the kids and had cake too. Poor kiddo was so exhausted from the photo and the party that she I didn't even get to the end of Leslie's block before she conked out.

Ellie is doing a lot better with the toddler room, but she got pink eye AGAIN last Thursday. She's in a class with kids aged 1-2 so some of the children in there have a vocabulary larger than Ellie's which isn't hard since she only says mama, dada, ut-oh, and dog. When we got there on Monday, a few kids ran over to Ellie, started petting her and saying "baby! baby!". Since she's bald, I think they must think she's 3 months old or something. Then the lunch lady brought the breakfast in and they all started saying "eat! eat! eat! eat!!". It was so funny. They all sound like little birds chirping excitedly. Ellie can't say the word, but she knows what it means because when I ask her if she wants to eat, she runs to her high chair. Her teachers find her amusing because she can put down so much food. Yesterday they told me that she ate five fish sticks, mac and cheese and some green beans for lunch. Then she tried eating other kids' lunches. She must have been born with Lee's metabolism and my appetite.

This past weekend, we had planned on going to the Dallas Zoo on Saturday morning, but Lee came down with food poisoning from something he ate on Friday night so we kept it low key on Saturday. So low key, in fact, that I can't really remember much about what we did other than Ellie and I went on a long walk and then in the afternoon, we went to the pool. Late that night, Ben got sick so Lee had to help take him to the emergency room and didn't get home until 2AM... so it was sort of a rough weekend.

We did get the chance to go to the Dallas Zoo on Sunday. If you're in Dallas or visiting Dallas and looking for a good zoo, I would go to the Fort Worth Zoo. The Dallas Zoo doesn't even have any elephants and the Dallas SWAT team shot the gorilla in an unfortunate incident about three years ago (actually Jabari committed suicide by cop because he acted aggressively). But Ellie didn't really care because in the children's area, she got to see fish and ducks, pet a guinea pig and a rabbit, and harass a large pig. We got to see a cheetah almost eat a squirrel so that was pretty cool too. The zoo also has an exhibit called "Stingray Bay" and we got to touch some stingrays (minus the barb) and Lee fed one a frozen minnow. The best thing about big outings like this is that Ellie takes an awesome nap afterward. Her nap was so long that I got to watch an entire Lifetime movie called "She's Too Young" without interruption while I cleaned the closet. Awesome. Love Lifetime. This weekend is Father's Day so Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there (especially mine)!