Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Father's day at the puppy zoo

Summer is finally here in Chicago. Which means there are tons of kid-friendly events all around us since we live in a very kid-friendly neighborhood in the city - Lincoln Park.
A and I, in our enthusiastic parental affection, dressed little Precious in extremely cute-sy shorts and a sun hat and headed to the zoo. What's really cool about the Lincoln Park Zoo is that it's right in the middle of the city. We could even walk to it from our home, except that S's naptime and mealtime might get screwed up since I'm SO darn anal about doing things on time when it comes to her routine.
(I can already imagine her rebelling in her teenage years and eating dinner for breakfast and starting out with ice cream just to piss me off. Sigh. Actually that sounds perfectly fun and I secretly wish she'll go ahead and do it so I can join her!)
Anyway, back to the point. It was father's day last weekend and I made A wear his traditional Super-Dad t-shirt. I also bought S a "Daddy's girl" onesie (which was on sale for $3 at Carter's!!! Brilliant!) Very corny to get matching clothes but it's a tradition that we've come to adore.
Anyway anyway, back to the point again.
Animals.
S has so many stuffed animals given to her by loving friends and relatives and we keep teaching her the names of all the animals. She currently owns at least one:
giraffe
koala bear
polar bear
Pooh bear
German bear (no, you didn't miss out on childhood. This is just a bear dressed in Bavarian clothes)
cow
horse
moose
dog/ puppy (in various sizes)
penguin
bald eagle
sheep
tiger
monkey
turtle
frog
bunny rabbit
mickey mouse
which I think is way too many toys for a kid living in an apartment.
Many a time, S tries to repeat the name of the animal she is playing with and A and I have been getting excited thinking about how she will jump up in joy when she meets the animal LIVE at the zoo. 
With this excited thought, we entered the zoo and proceeded to say hi to the giraffes. They looked so tall, elegant and amazing that we turned to S, telling her 'giraffe, kanna!'. 
Her eyes opened wide and shone bright with excitement and recognition. Or so we thought.
Sure enough, she started jumping up and down in her stroller and as we continued to introduce this fascinating, majestic animal, she yelled out with joy- "PUPPY!!!!!!"
A and I gently reinforced, "not puppy, darling, this is a giraffe." 
And S continued to point and exclaim, "PUPPY!" at every other animal we saw at the zoo. 

"Lion, kanna"
"PUPPY!"
"Flamingo, kutti"
"PUPPY!"
"Polar bear, chellam"
"PUPPY!"

We are guessing that's baby talk for 'animal'. 
Or we went to a puppy zoo and 'saw' other animals because of our vivid imaginations. 

Tell me, I'm curious:
Do you think Father's Day is fun or corny? What did you do this year?


2 comments:

  1. Madhumita ChakrabortyJune 20, 2013 at 8:43 AM

    LOL...we had similar experience last year. Anik was only interested in running around the zoo and hardly bothered abt the animals. This year was slightly better, he recognized and named most animals until he saw the small toy train and took a ride on it. Now if you ask him what did u see in the zoo, he replies 'chu chu taaiin mamma' !!! Sigh!

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    Replies
    1. haha! Maybe we should go together and see them say "chu chu taainn" and "puppy" non-stop to each other.

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