Plants and Animals

We planted a few things this week: tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, carrots, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard and a few different kinds of flowers. Ender is hyper-aware of the plants' presence and asks to water them about 100 times per day. I'm just hoping that I don't kill them too quickly. I've never grown anything before, so we'll see how this goes.

 

Ender also has a little cactus that he is enthralled with- I'm hoping that that is a little hardier than the other plants and less likely to die since Ender is treating the cactus like a pet. I expect him to name it any day now.

 

We also managed a family morning at the zoo last week. This is the first time that Ezra really remembers going. We went last year right around his first birthday and I think he enjoyed the animals then, but this time he was really ooh-ing and ahh-ing.



 

This giraffe ended up coming just about as close to us as it could get. Ezra was in my arms at the edge of the fence trying to reach over, pointing at the giraffe and opening and closing his mouth like he wanted to say something but was awe-struck. Ender, on the other hand, backed up as far as he could on the trail when the giraffe came close to us and said, "I can see him fine from here!" That perfectly demonstrates my boys- Ezra inviting the excitement of adventure, Ender being cautious in the face of the unknown.

 

Ender asked immediately to go back to the zoo when we got to the car. We have passes for the year, so we plan to go back quite often over the summer and fall. There are a few different sections to the zoo that are all big enough to take a full morning at our pace, so each section is perfect for a long morning, grab a bite for lunch then head home for afternoon nap and quiet time.

 

Other impressive animals were the peacocks with their feathers fully on display, the elephants (where Ezra could have stayed all day!) and the hippos. The hippos can walk under a small bridge at our zoo and they did right when we were standing on top of it! The boys got a very close view of the hippos from above. Ezra even tried to say hippo, he was so fascinated by then!