The Zoo

Yesterday, while our friends from Florida were in town, we went to the Philadelphia Zoo for the day. We met other friends there, so we had a group of 5 grown-ups and 6 kids. The kids (an almost 9 year-old, 2 six-year olds, and 3 three-year olds) had a good time, as would be expected.

I mean, the Philadelphia Zoo. Fun. Not a lot to add to that.

The only drama was that I, mean and terrible mother that I am, denied my children the joy of having their faces painted. And while you may gasp in horror at how very, very deprived my children are, let me clarify.

1) $6 PER CHILD...seriously.

2) Face painting, in my personal experience has a life-span of approximately 10 minutes, before either:

a) It starts to itch...and the child wants it removed.
b) The child decides to hug someone (usually someone wearing something
white and dry-clean-only), leaving half of their face on the huggee.
c) The child begins to cry (either because of the itchy face, or for some
unrelated reason) and the paint begins to run.
OR
d) The child eats or drinks something and rubs the lower half of the paint
off and ingests it.

So, no face-painting. And that's final. And if you say the words "face painting" to me one more time, we are going to the car.

I don't know what else to say about the zoo. The elephants are back (for those who don't know, they took the elephants somewhere to rebuild their habitat). The habitat looks exactly like it did before, as far as I can tell. But wow - elephants are BIG.

Giant river otters are very fun to watch. So are polar bears - if they will get in the water. We watched the polar bear think about going in the water for about 10 minutes...he kept inching toward the edge...but no, nothing. The polar bear psych-out.

Monkeys are cute. Even gorillas look cuddly, until you remember that they would utterly shred you if you got anywhere near them.

Bears - ditto.

Hmmm...I have nothing witty to add here.
Giraffes, tall. Zebras, stripy. Turtles, slow. Snakes, gross. Lizards, gross.

Anyway - if you are around Philadelphia, willing to deal with traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway (and no, don't fool yourself that it is better on a Sunday afternoon, it's not), and haven't already been to the zoo a kajillion times. You should go. Kids love it.

If you don't want to deal with the traffic, and can live without the elephants, try the Elmwood Park Zoo.

I mean, who doesn't like a zoo?