the fish vs the tiger

I took Jonas to the Natural Science Center yesterday for the first time. I hadn't been in about a year and a half, so I was excited to see their new zoo exhibit. We struck out as soon as we could, so about 9, and even though it was raining hard when we left, I had a good feeling about the day. Sure enough, on the way over it cleared up and the faintest hint of a rainbow appeared.

We started out milling around the kids playground area, but after 30 min. or so when I realized that Jonas was not in any way getting tired of pushing around a child sized shopping cart, I decided we should go ahead and do the zoo since I thought he was most likely to get bored there, so I would get it out of the way.

Let me tell you, if you ever want to go to the zoo, go in the morning-- all the animals were active and CLOSE! Of course, Jonas had no idea how lucky he was to see a tiger playing with a toy in the water like a huge house cat, leaping and roaring and batting with delight right in front of us. He was about as interested in the rocks at his feet. He was vaguely interested in the tiger when it walked right up to the glass in front of us and started pacing... so cool! Jonas did enjoy looking at the monkeys and the peacocks that were roaming around, though. The zoo had this exhibit of meerkats with a "walk in" tunnel that was about 4 ft high. You could walk in the tunnel out into the middle of the meerkat habitat, and at the end of the tunnel was a big fisheye glass to look at the meerkats. Jonas loved this. not so much the meerkats, but definitely the tunnel and fisheye glass. I would like to point out that "meerkat" is not in the dictionary according to the spellchecker here. Weird. Anyway...

We made short work of the rest of the museum. Jonas really, really liked the big fish tank where the fish would swim right up to him. He liked that way better than the lame tigers, silly boy! So after we finished the museum and ate, it was about 1:00, and I am not one to waste any money, so of course I took Jonas back to the play areas to let him play until he fell over (his nap time was at 12, and he missed it). Jonas was ok with this plan. He had a marvelous time sitting and playing with the cash register, playing in the toy house, playing with the puppets and the puppet theatre, playing with the blocks and the dinosaurs, and of course playing on the water table with the boats! He even enjoyed the teeter-totter, which I wasn't sure he would understand... looks like he did, though!

I realized it was time to go when I got a phone call and Jonas had a meltdown because I didn't give him the phone immediately. He calmed down after we walked through the maze (which I am proud to say I got through while being 100% distracted and just walking without paying attention), but I still packed it up and we left around 3:30. I handed Jonas a cup of cheerios to eat since it had been a while since he ate last, and I don't know if he got into them good or not, because before I even pulled out of the parking space, that boy was asleep! We had a good day at the Science Center. Tiring, but very fun indeed!