Our Trip to the Zoo

I was hit with a brilliant idea last week while trying to find a new addition to our list of possible weekend adventures. I suddenly remembered that there is a small zoo at a city park in Greenville. I emailed Darcey the link to the zoo's homepage and she was so excited by the idea that she didn't even look into it. The answer was a simple "yes."

There is a similar sized zoo in Fresno and I probably visited it four or five times in the two years I lived there. Most of those times were with Darcey and we enjoyed strolling through the exhibits on slow weekend days. The last time we were at a zoo Darcey was pregnant with Leah. It was more than two years ago when we visited the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. It must have been in the middle of June because it was in the upper 80s when we arrived at around 9 a.m. and pushing 100 when we left at noon.

Yesterday was a perfect summer day for the zoo as thick layers of clouds kept the area a bit cooler than an usual day in early August. We told Leah on the way out the door that we were going to see elephants and she just repeated that word over and over on the drive to Greenville. Well not that word exactly, but her version of it which sounds like "Elliots." The giant animals are just inside the gate and as we turned the corner and they came into sight, Leah's mouth dropped wide open. She waved and said hi to them and then noticed the monkeys in a pen further down the walk. Off we went.

I was really surprised at how nice the little zoo is. There are a lot of animals to see ranging from giant snapping turtles to a pair of magnificent lions. Leah especially enjoyed those but also made a point to look in every display in the reptile building and spent several minutes studying a toucan.

Darcey and I just ended up following her as she did the toddler trot from exhibit to exhibit. We had as much fun watching her as she had watching the giraffes. It made me think of those afternoons at the Fresno Zoo and how long ago that was. We barely knew who we were and we had no idea who we would become.

And we had no idea that anyone else would enjoy those kinds of days as much as we do.

-Sefton

Leah's Sleeping Problem

Recently Leah's sleeping habits have been disrupted. We still have the same bedtime routine that includes reading books, singing and dancing. I've even added a few surefire calming tricks like rubbing her back and reading to her in bed instead of in my lap. But even though 7 p.m. is bedtime, there are nights where she won't be asleep until after 9 p.m.

About six weeks ago, we converted her crib into a toddler bed. The difference is that the high front railings of the crib come off and are replaced with a small rail that is designed to keep her from rolling out of bed while she is asleep. That new rail also doesn't stretch all the way across the crib, which allows Leah to get out of bed and play instead of going to sleep.

And play she does. She gets into her dirty clothes hamper and strings shirts and pants across the room. She pulls the diapers down from her changing table and piles them up on the floor. Toys are scattered from corner to corner. On more than one occasion Leah has actually come out of her room to come play with us. And then there are the books…

Sometimes in the evening she will start to cry and when we go to check on her we find that she is upset because she has covered her bed with books and has left nowhere for herself to lay down. We find random pages laying on the floor obviously torn from a book the night before. And on more than one occasion, we have found her asleep on the floor next to a stack of books.

Our nightly routine now involves a late-night check to make sure she is in fact in bed. We also take the time to pick up all of the items that need not be in bed with a sleeping child. The picture above was taken on the morning after her first night of toddler-bed freedom.

Somehow I don't think she looked that peaceful 10 minutes before she actually fell asleep.

-Sefton