COMO ZOO

I went to bed last night feeling as if I wanted nothing more than to stay in that bed of mine for the next few weeks - or at least until this baby decides to make his entrance. Why? Well, as I have mentioned many times before, it has been a very busy summer, and all I have wished for is a few days at home with nothing [and I mean nothing] to do.

After looking at my calendar yesterday afternoon, I realized we surprisingly had the option to do just that [nothing] this week. Well, except for a party at Nonna's Wednesday night and Lumberjack Days this weekend - but for us, that is pretty much nothing.

So you can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning with a burst of energy and the grand old thought of piling all the kids in the car to head out to Como Zoo for the day. What was I thinking? Como Zoo + any day of the week pretty much + myself with the 4 kids - the Mr. = a very chaotic and stressful event.

I decided the heck with questioning myself and my sanity, and went ahead with my plan to go to the zoo.

The morning was a typical one when trying to get out of the house. I asked the kids to get dressed 100 times while I was in the shower, which they finally did after I got out of the shower. I asked them to all clean up their messes, which they did surprisingly fast this time around. I also asked them to perform the most arduous task of all - getting a pair of socks, placing them on their feet, and then getting their tennis shoes and placing those on as well. Not sure if it is because they have been pretty much living in flip flops all summer long and forgot how to do the whole socks and shoes thing, or if they were just being plain lazy, but this took them about 20 minutes to accomplish. Whew. After everyone was clothed, fed, and had shoes on their feet, I headed out to the garage, packed a few bottles of water, the stroller, diaper bag, camera, all of the kids and myself in to the car and headed out.

We were on our way to the zoo - and I was tired already.

I decided the best route to take was 36, so we went and hopped on 36, turned up the tunes and danced away to pass the time. Everything was going great until traffic came to a dead stop. Crap - construction again. There were a few distinct moans from the back seat saying "Awwwww - traffic!!" and "why aren't we moving, it is taking too long." I explained to them it should not be too long and that we just needed to be patient - even though I was secretly cursing to myself due to being totally impatient. Go figure.

As I was waiting to creep up a few inches I looked up at the sky and noticed the clouds did not look too favorable. Meaning it looked like it was going to rain. Seriously? Seriously.

Traffic started inching along a bit better, and I started to feel confident that we would actually make it to the zoo before it was time to turn around and get Liv down for her nap. I guess the man in the lane next to me did not feel the same, as he was yelling in to his cell phone, laying on his horn, and flailing one of his arms about in anger. I looked over at him and said out loud to no one in particular, "Geeze, settle down, traffic is not going anywhere even if you yell and honk your horn; jerk." Anthony must have heard me, as he followed up my comment by saying, "Yah you Meathead!!"

Nice.

My son had picked up a doozie from my long list of phrases I use while driving and find myself needing to let my aggression out due to the stupidity of a a fellow driver. Though I do have to say, he chose a better one this time around; as the last time someone did something unfavorable on the road and I got upset, Anthony shouted, "You Douche bag!!"

I know, I know the mother of the year award is so not going to me.

So, the miles of construction finally ended, we sped up, and were able to make it to our destination. I piled all the kids out, made our way to the front doors only to find they were not open yet. And there was line of about 100 people in front of us. Time they open? 10am. Time then? 9:50am. No big deal, we waited.

Once we got inside I had to go to the bathroom. Perfect. Me having to go to the bathroom in this incredibly crowded zoo with four kids in tow. So I did the smartest thing I could think of and left Ava and Lucas with Liv in the stroller right outside the bathroom door while I ran in with Anthony, went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and ran back out to the kids as fast as my 9 month pregnant body could. Whew, no one had snatched my kids away while I was peeing - they were all still there waiting patiently.

Finally, it was time to see some animals! We headed out the doors to make our way down the outdoor path toward the monkeys when Ava yelled, "Hey there is Daddy!!" I said, "No honey, Daddy is not hear silly!" As I looked up in the direction she was pointing I saw Daddy. He had decided to surprise us and come to the zoo. Thank God.

We spent the morning walking around and seeing all of the animals. We started with the butterflies. The kids were amazed by how many there were flying around, landing on people and sitting in little bowls all over the place eating watermelon. Anthony could not get over the fact that someone put watermelon out for the butterflies to eat - for some reason this seemed unheard of to him.

We then made our way to see Anthony' s most favorite animals of all. The monkeys. or Gorilla's. Or Orangutans. Or whatever they are called. I always get them all mixed up -but I am certain we saw a few of each of them.

The boys were not all that in to me snapping pictures of them on this little outing. Neither was Ava. They wanted me to take as many pictures of the monkeys, gorillas, orangutans, as I could.

So I did.

After we were finally done admiring the Primates, we headed over to see the Bulls. And boy were they ever massive and stinky and frankly quite ugly to look at. But the kids seemed to enjoy watching them slooooowly walk around inside their fenced in quarters.

We ended our morning at the zoo with a show put on by the infamous seal at Como Zoo - Sparky. Daddy took the kids down to sit in the stadium seating area.

Miss Liv and I watched from afar as I could not get the stoller down to where Daddy and the kids were. This turned out to be just fine as Olivia seemed to find more enjoyment in dancing to the music that was playing while sparky performed than actually watching the show.

Liv must have worked up a thirst, as she guzzled down my bottle of water as we waited for Daddy and the rest of the kiddos to meet us after the show.

Even though the day started out a bit on the hectic side, I think it turned out to be quite perfect. Daddy surprised us by taking the morning off of work to join us, we saw oodles of fun animals, had lunch, got to see the Sparky Show, and even got an extra special treat. The boys chose giant bags of cotton candy, the girls, extra large butterfly suckers.

The fun morning and long drive resulted in some very tired kids when I arrived back home. I think Olivia was the most tired out of the bunch.