The Louisville Zoo

I had promised Jimmy all summer that I would take him to The Zoo to see the dinosaur display. So, the Friday before school started, we finally went to the zoo. Our Zoo is totally awesome. They have so much stuff the kids can do. Some of it you have to pay extra for but that's okay. 

Andrew and his Mommy came with us, which was awesome. Even more awesome because they could get is in for free as well.

We tried to look at animals first. It was a really hot that day so we stayed indoors or in the shade a lot. I really like this guy:

He is an Orangutan, He is always so friendly every time we come. He loved all the attention from the boys. As soon as we walked in he came down from his tree to stare at us. There were two more girl orangutans in the back and they could care less about us. I think he's staring down at Ned in this picture. He's just so huge, I think it's so neat to be so close to him.

There is a small splash park at our zoo as well. Ned was ecstatic, I had never taken him to the splash park before. I had the hardest time getting him to stand in line to go down the slides. He kept ducking under the arms of the attendant and diving down the slides before anyone could catch him. 

After getting all wet, Andrew was ready to go home. So Jimmy, Ned and I went to see the dinosaurs all by ourselves.  The Dinosaur exhibit is temporary and we had to pay to get in. I tried to tell Jimmy that they weren't real, that they were just machines; but they were just so amazing that he had a hard time remembering that.

They moved and grunted and blinked. Jimmy was real timid at first and Ned made no attempt to get out of the stroller.

We were already off on a rough start because the darn things were so convincing. Jimmy started to calm down when he saw a Mommy dinosaur and her hatching babies. He said, "Awe, Mom look, babies! And there's the Mommy too, but where's the Daddy?"

I told him they must not of made a Daddy. But I was wrong . . .

The next clearing showed the "Daddy" dinosaur on the ground getting his guts torn out by a small carnivore with tons of spikes all over his back. The small dinosaur was bobbing up and down, dipping his head into the Daddy's gutted belly. There were a bunch of other small carnivores surrounding the killed Daddy as well.

Jimmy started to spaz, Ned was yelling "Go, Go!" and pointing towards the exit.

I tried to calm them down on our way out, but it didn't help. Another dinosaur spit water at us. Jimmy still didn't seem to believe that they weren't real until we got to the very end where they had a display of one of the dinosaurs with his skin missing. It showed all the mechanics inside, proving that that they were not real.

Jimmy has no desire to go back.

So Jimmy started Kindergarten the following week. And he acted like a pro. There were no tears, no complaining. He was brave and friendly and had a great day!

Ned has been horrible. He misses his brother during the day. A few times now he has tried to sneak into the school with Jimmy. He's really mad that he doesn't get to go.

We had our Open House already and the teacher had nothing but praise to say about Jimmy. She said she was surprised to see that his file said he was shy because she hasn't seen any shyness. She praised him for being so kind and obedient. She told me that we were doing a great job as parents. Kudos to us!