Second Trip to the Zoo

Chris and I took Paxton to the Austin Zoo for the second time this month. It's one of my favorite spots in Austin, because all of the animals are rescue animals. It's much smaller than a typical zoo, so some guests are apparently disappointed. As the mother of a toddler who tires easily, a smaller zoo is a better option. Even with it's relatively diminutive size, we still didn't get to see all of the animals, but still enjoyed ourselves immensely.

The first time we took Paxton to this zoo, he was only about nine-months-old. He definitely didn't get the full experience. I'm not sure he even noticed that there were animals. The visit was primarily just a nice place to spend the day with a friend of ours. Her daughter is older than Paxton, and I loved seeing her go from animal to animal, making their sounds. I looked forward to the day when Paxton would be able to do the same.

With the blistering heat of the summer, we opted out of many outdoor experiences this year. The weather in November was much nicer, although I was still sweating by the end of the visit. That's par for the course for this transplated Pennsylvania girl. Paxton was happy with the visit, but we significantly cut into his naptime, so he began to get a bit cranky before we wrapped up our day.

We got to see monkeys, playful tigers, lions, brown bears, curious tortoises, parrots, vultures, lemurs and more, more, more! Paxton was interested in all of them. He got a happy surprise when we showed him the little train we were going to ride around the park. He and Daddy checked it out while we waited to board. Paxton's eyes were wide through the whole trip. He was so sweet.

Only one thing trumped the train ride for Paxton--the opportunity to feed the goats. He was nervous at first, but as he watched Mommy and Daddy feed them with ease, he became more bold. It took some practive to figure out the right way to offer the food. He developed his own solution by offering them one piece at a time. There's nothing like stretching out the fun of a good experience by letting a toddler take the reins. I used to really enjoy having a nice dinner. Now the length of those dinners has doubled as our distracted little boy takes mini-bites between arranging his Hot Wheels and Thomas the Tank Engine magnets just so. Feeding the animals was fun at first. After Paxton had at it for a while, I wandered off bored to sit on a bench. Daddy was more patient, and the two of them fed goats, deer, llamas and sheep quite happily.

We knew our day was wrapping up when a goat grabbed Paxton's bag of food through the fence and he melted down in utter dismay. Even when we got the food back, he was inconsolable. He looked at the guilty goat with accusations of betrayal in his little eyes. No wildlife was to be forgiven that day. We loaded up in the car and headed to Sonic for a lunch-on-the-go before we returned home for naptime. All in all, we had a wonderful family day of fun!