Myke & Me Plus ThreeFour: Zoo News

Busy week last week. "Nate's Butt Farm" on Tuesday and then the San Diego zoo on Thursday. I must be going crazy. I guess it's just getting slightly easier to take all 4 places now that Ella isn't nursing 4x per day...and she doesn't need a nap as much. Well, she does...but I just don't give in to her and her crazy "I need a nap" schedule. She's the 4th child. She needs to rally. And rally she does. She can really hang in there. We got to the zoo at 10am (after the kids woke up at 7am, as per usual) and we didn't get in the car to drive home until 3pm. So Ella was awake ALL day. She got to ride in her stroller with a big shade and reclined seat, however, so she COULD have napped if she really wanted to. Jus' saying'. I'm not torturing her, I just don't plan my life around her nap schedule, as some parents do. She has to do what we do. If she needs to fall asleep she'll have to do it in the stroller/in the car/ in my arms/on the ground, whatever the case may be. Poor Ella. :)

I wanted to get a trip to the zoo in before the boys turn 3 and start having to pay entry fees to get into all the parks (Legoland, Sea World, the zoo, etc). I really try to avoid all of those type places on weekends when the crowds are out of control so the weekdays are my only option. The only problem with that is that Myke works M-F 9-5 and I don't have any retired family members who live in the area who would want to join me. So it's on my own, or not at all.

Luckily for this particular day at the zoo we met up with a friend and her almost-two-year-old son. They could only stay for an hour (they have annual passes so no biggie) but it was nice to have the 2 adults:5 kids ratio for that hour. That said, it was within that hour that I actually LOST one of my children. Yes, I lost Owen for about 3-5 minutes. One second he was standing at the stroller waiting for me to come help him retrieve his water bottle and the next second he was gone. I knew I had JUST seen him moments before so I wasn't too worried. The thing was, this big field trip group of about 50 people (at least) passed between me and the stroller (I was standing about 5-10 feet away looking at the koalas with the other kids and my friend). Owen got swept up in this mass of people and just went with them. They were probably middle school students and their chaperones. They were ALL wearing matching blue t-shirts. Luckily, Owen was wearing a bright red shirt (all the kids where...great idea for going to busy public places with kids..dress them alike in easy-to-spot colors). I ran up the walkway and around the corner to see where the "blue group" had gone and sure enough, there they were, standing there with one of the adults holding a sobbing little Owen. Poor little guy! He clung on to me for awhile after that. It was definitely scary, but it wasn't long enough for me to really panic. I knew I had JUST seen him by the stroller so I knew he wasn't far. I just wasn't sure which direction he was in. I was just happy that my friend was still with me at the time so I could go look for him and not worry about the other 3 kids at that time.