1. The weather was absolutely beautiful today, so we went to the zoo. It was by far our best visit–we saw a lion and two sun bears WAY up close. We also finally saw the tiger and the kangaroos properly. One kangaroo had a joey in her pouch. I think I was more excited about that than the kids were.
2. The boys spent a significant amount of time at the zoo walking hand-in-hand. It was sweet.
3. This must be the best time of year for zoo trips. There is hardly ever anyone there when we go on a weekday morning. I assume it’s too early in the school year for field trips. The lack of crowds made it easy to keep track of the boys while they ran around.
4. I just really don’t like crowds.
5. Next time I may ditch the stroller and just walk everyone. It would have been easier to keep up with the bigs if I hadn’t been pushing Anselm.
6. If I go without the stroller, I really need some kind of backpack to keep our gear in. Walking around with a diaper bag slung over my shoulder sounds miserable.
7. I wonder where they make chic, affordable backpacks.
8. My catchword must be “beautiful”. Ephraim goes on and on about how beautiful things are. “Look at this beautiful room!” “See my beautiful shoes!” “Look at my beautiful mies!” There are worse things to hear your children repeat.
9. Another good phrase that’s been caught: Ephraim is find of sitting down with his brothers and saying “I love my kids!!”
10. A not-so-good one: Clive has now learned to threaten his brother with a time-out.
11. Clive keep me laughing with his dedication to copycatting. Today, as I was making coffee, Ephraim asked me what I was doing. I told him. Then I wondered aloud what we should do that day (as I hadn’t decided on the zoo yet.) Ephraim answered back, “Mom, we’re making COFFEE.” Clive dutifully repeated, tone for tone, “Mom, we makee COFFEE.” I’m not sure how I like them ganging up on me like that.
12. Copycat example no. 2: At the zoo, Ephraim was running without watching where he was going, and (to borrow a phrase from Milne) accidentally ran into a bush accidentally, which meant Clive had to accidentally run into the bush on purpose. Being the copycat is serious business.
13. Speaking of cats, Mims now knows that when the boys have been tucked in and kissed goodnight and the door to their room closed, that’s her time to spend some quality time with me. She chases me down and yowls until I sit somewhere and she can sit on me. Every night, as soon as I leave their room, there she is. Yowling.
14. She and Clive actually had a close-to-you moment two days ago. By the time I got my camera out, it was over.
15. I have a list of probably 9-10 things I want to write about here, but can’t quite bring myself to do it. I think the succinct nature of Facebook status updates has made me reluctant to write wordy blog posts. I think I’m going to deactivate my account for awhile so I can drown myself in words.