Wooking for Wions

Our morning activity today was another long bike ride.  I’ve discovered a long, straight, mostly flat path along the mighty Mississip, and I rode along it for a handful of miles today, towing 65 pounds of boy along with me.  40 pounds of boy – that is, Jack – noticed the “Audubon Zoo” sign as we sped past the zoo on our way to the bike path, and for the entire hourlong ride asked me, over and over and over again, and again, and again, and once more, “Can we go wook for wions,* Mama?  Can we?  Can we go wook for wions?  Can we wook for dem, Mama?  Da wions?  Can we go?”  I answered “Yes, Jack, we can go wook – er, I mean, look for lions.”  This did not stop the ceaseless asking.  It’s just one of the burdens of hanging out all day with a three year old.

So we did our bike ride and then came home, and he continued to ask me if we could wook for wions while I sat him and his brother (who’d napped in the bike trailer) in front of an episode of Backyardigans so I could take a shower.  Twenty  minutes later, I loaded him, STILL ASKING GOD HELP ME, into the car, along with his brother, the diaper bag, and a packed lunch, and as I shifted the gearstick into Drive, it began to rain.

Shoot.  I looked at the sky, furrowed my brow, bit my lip, and did other hemming and hawing things for a while to see if it would magically clear up in thirty seconds.

When it did not, I left them in the car with the AC on and ran in the house to turn on the computer and check the forecast.  It was not raining very hard, and the thunder was just the rumbly occasional kind of thunder, not the cracking booming Holy Crap We’re All Gonna Die kind of thunder.  I saw no lightning.  When the computer finally booted up, I noted a 60% chance of patchy thunderstorms, and a radar picture that showed very thin, patchy rain clouds traveling across the NOLA area.

I thought of the rain, and the very few sheltered areas in the zoo.  Then I thought of Jack asking me, all the livelong day, if we could go look for lions, and decided to grab their rain jackets and head out.  If we get wet, we get wet.

It turned out to be the absolute best day at the zoo we’ve ever had.  The rain was occasional and light, so it kept us very cool, kept the crowds away, and got the animals out and frolicking.  There were no lines at the entrance – we checked in at the membership counter and then headed for the gate, Jack beside himself with excitement, announcing to every adult in the vicinity that we were, at long last, going to look for lions.  We paused not a moment at the flamingo exhibit near the front, instead jogging as fast as Jack’s 14 inch legs could carry him, straight back toward the Asian Dominion.

The elephants were right up at the edge of their enclosure, enjoying the cool summer afternoon, and for once I didn’t have to put Jack on my shoulders for him to be able to see them over the heads of masses of other people.  A few exhibits down, a giraffe pondered some lush greenery at its feet, and then slowly worked its hooves apart until it was practically doing the splits, eventually getting low enough that it could reach the leaves.  This was a hilarious sight.  When we made it to the lion exhibit, the King of the Jungle,  unfortunately, was nowhere to be found, but Jack was ok with it when I explained he was hiding from the rain.  We stopped in the Cypress Swamp picnic area and ate our packed lunch (side note – Liam loves red pepper hummus and pita, my little bourgeois baby).   I had to give Bear a bath after Jack firmly smushed him in his PB & J, too excited to pay attention.  Liam smiled wide from his stroller, face covered in a sticky paste made of graham cracker, baby spit, and a little bit of zoo dirt.  They were a sticky, sweaty, happy mess.

Liam was able to walk a large part of the day, because there was plenty of room for a toddler to Frankenstein-stalk and wobble all over the paths.  It appears he has already hit the age where he is too cool to hold my hand – he kept wrenching his hand away from me and then taking off for the alligator enclosure, squealing with joy as he motored towards certain Death by Becoming Somebody’s Lunch.  Jack walked the whole day, too, of course, and also pushed the stroller – again, not something I could have let him do if there were (as is usual) tons of people there.  He even  had a breakthrough – he went through a kid-sized tunnel walkway thing they have there, which has, up til now, been too terrifying to contemplate.  It took him about twenty minutes to work up the courage, but he was pretty pleased with himself once he got to the other side, shouting “Good job, Jack!  I’m a good job!  It’s not scary!”

We came home minutes before the sky really opened up.  I put both boys to bed, and they were asleep in seconds.  Now I’m enjoying an afternoon cup of coffee, the whimpering dog at my feet, listening to the pleasant sounds of the rain and thunder outside.

Another perfect, perfect summer day.  That I should be so lucky as to have this awesome summer break with my boys – it simply isn’t fair.

*When Jack wants to go to the zoo, he asks if we can go look for lions.  When he wants to go to the aquarium, he asks if we can go look for sharks.  Charming.