June 10 - Como Zoo

Yes, I'm writing about June 10 in the wee hours of the morning on Aug. 24. I have a lot of catching up to do! I don't want to lump all of the events into one enormous post, though, so I'll get to them a little at a time. And here we go ...

June 10 was a Thursday I took off to hang out with Jonathan, since Jean needed the time to prepare for her eldest son's graduation party. Wanting to make the most of a weekday off with Jonathan, I packed him up in the van, tossed the Signing Time: Zoo Train movie in the DVD player and headed up to the cities to have lunch with my mom ("Mamo") and grandma ("Nana"). We had a great visit and enjoyed Grandma's delicious chicken salad (I love chicken salad), and afterwards Mom joined Jonathan and I for a trip to Como Zoo.

I'm not sure why, but Jonathan didn't seem quite as interested in the animals there this time. We had taken him once last summer as well. Maybe it was because there wasn't much of a crowd. He seems to get more engaged if there are more people around -- to a point, anyway. Or maybe it was just because he's more mobile now and prefers to be on the move.

But a couple of the highlights that held his attention for a while were the monstrous orangutan carrying around a baby orangutan and the puffin swimming in place right near the exhibit window. Diego's orangutan and puffin rescue movies are a couple of his favorite, so that might have had something to do with it. 

In any case, he also got a kick out of the umbrella Mamo bought for him and had a blast on the rides at Como Town! He's so small, he was only able to go on the little cars and the train, but he was thrilled with those and went on each three times.

Once the train started moving, he kept saying he wanted to sit somewhere else (in the engine, caboose, or any one of the other cars), and I'd tell him that we couldn't change seats while the train was moving, but we could switch once the train stopped. So when the ride was over, we'd get out and he'd walk to a different seat, but then ultimately ask to go back to the last open car. I'd ask him a few times if he was sure, because we'd have to stay there once the train started moving again. He'd affirm that, yes, he wanted to sit there ... but then, of course, as soon as we were on our way, he'd want to switch. What a character!

I nearly swiped his umbrella the morning we had four inches of rain in Lake City, because I couldn't find our big ones. Thankfully, the rain had just about stopped by the time we were heading out. But if it had still been so heavy that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, I figured nobody would see the mini-umbrella either!

Here Jonathan was exclaiming, "All aboard!" while driving his car.

As always, Jonathan loved getting to spend time with Mamo, and talked about the zoo "adventure" for days.