A Surprising Zoo Trip

I've never been a huge fan of the zoo. This might be because I have three very different daughters. Many of my friends buy annual memberships to the zoo year after year. Two summers ago on a Fun Jar trip to the zoo, one such friend remarked to me that she was surprised I didn't have a membership, especially as a Fun Jar girl. At the time, I was pushing my youngest daughter in her stroller, one daughter was lagging behind our group and one had dashed ahead.

Looking at them, I replied, "This is pretty much how it goes for me at the zoo. I spend all of my time saying, 'Wait up.' or 'Hurry up.' or 'Where is she?' It's not exactly a relaxing experience."My friend looked around, laughed and said, "I guess that's the difference in having two children and three."

So how did we end up at the zoo so early in this summer's plans? Largely because I caved to the pressure of three eager girls, who were (for once) in agreement that this was the perfect Fun Jar outing for today. I was sympathetic to their plea for zoo time partly because my kindergartner missed her zoo field trip when school was canceled due to the floods. But I was not without my reservations...



Which is why this morning at 8 AM, I explained to my daughters how the zoo has never been a lot of fun for me since I've had to spend most of my time chasing them down. I reminded them that those zoo trips were before my leg surgery and that I would need for them to be careful not to run away today and to do their best to stay with our group.

I'm sure it wasn't my pep talk that made this trip different, but the girls did a fabulous job of staying with the group, had good attitudes and helped us have an all around great day at the zoo. So good, in fact, that we celebrated on the way home with Sonic shakes (two for one!) AND I purchased a membership... You might just see a zoo trip pop out of the Fun Jar again this summer!