Birthday weekend @ the zoo!
Ali’s birthday was Wednesday, the 26th. Our angel turned 4! I really can’t believe that she’s already four. It just doesn’t feel like 4 years have gone by. And I can’t remember my life before I had my girls.
Before we had kids, everyone would say things like, “it goes by so fast” and “they grow so quick” and “enjoy it while you still can”! Now I really know what they meant and it’s depressing….it seems like just yesterday I was holding that tiny, bald, chubby baby in my arms…and now she’s a princess-loving, face-painting, rainbow-puppy dog-unicorn-pink little girl of 4.
When Ali turned two, we had this giant bash at a local kid gym-type establishment. We spent a lot of money and invited all of Ali’s little friends from preschool and their parents. It was overwhelming for all of us to say the least, but most of all for Ali. She didn’t participate in a lot of things because it was just too much. All that attention was on her and she just didn’t know how to deal with it. Bad parents! We played the ‘whose throwing the best birthday party’ game that year and our daughter ended up losing out in the end. She would have been so much happier with something smaller, with just our immediate family…lesson learned! I won’t make that mistake again unless she specifically asks for it… 
Instead of a ginormous party with all her preschool friends this year, Ali chose to go to the Miami Metro Zoo for her birthday weekend. Now, for those of you who don’t know me, I am totally nuts about animals. Not PETA nuts, but I don’t stand for animal abuse and I am all for animal respect and compassion. As such, I am not really into zoos. As a matter of fact, I can’t stand zoos. Why? I just don’t believe wild animals have any business in captivity. Watching animals languish in enclosures just doesn’t do it for me….and this zoo is no exception.
Suffice it to say that most of the animals looked miserable and exhibited zoo-syndrome. In particular was a massive, beautiful, ancient elephant that seemed to exude stark stir craziness. The entire time I stared at him (over half an hour as I waited for Ali to play in the water park), this elephant stared ahead, not moving other than to sway from left to right in a rhythmic mad trance. It was depressing to say the very least. As I stood there watching this majestic animal, I listened to what people were saying about him. Some laughed, saying he looked like he was dancing. Others didn’t understand what he was doing and thought he might be agitated trying to get to the female (who was standing in a small pool of water compulsively dipping her trunk in and out of the water), and only one person accurately recognized his demise. Most people thought he was funny and almost everyone edged him to ‘move closer for a picture’ or ‘do something funny’.
So, yes, I am a mom against zoos! Before I had Ali, I thought long and hard about what I would do when the time came and Ali asked to go to the zoo. I thought I would have the backbone to say, no. But I am too weak when it comes to my girls…still, as she gets a bit older, our visits will be less and less frequent and I will start educating her on why I feel the way I do. And I will let her make her own decision regarding zoos and of course, deep down inside I hope she agrees with the way I see zoos.
This is the only animal image I am showing. Ali absolutely LOVES giraffes. Her love for giraffes is second only to her absolute PASSION for dinosaurs (yep, she says she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up). She knows all the scientific names of the dinosaurs and has a HUGE collection of dinosaurs, even more so than things that are pink!
So other than the petting zoo (which was a joke), Ali totally wanted to participate in the giraffe feeding station. For $2, we would get a couple of leaves of Kale (literally, three leaves for $2), which the giraffes would gingerly inhale with their long tongues. Ali was a bit scared, but after a while she totally got the hang of it!
They had a dinosaur section, with a large sand pit where you could dig for fossils. Of course, this was a big hit with Ali. But she wasn’t too fond of this guy…
And as usual, Helena was intrigued with all things teeny, tiny and microscopic. I swear, this little girl has the eyes of a hawk! Here she is digging for microscopic specimens at the fossil sand pit.
On Sunday we dragged ourselves to the Sawgrass Mills Mall….an obscene conglomeration of stores, outlets, bad food reservoirs and all things under the sun. Our destination was the Sanrio store…where anything Hello Kitty can be had. Now, I have to admit to being a HUGE Hello Kitty fanatic. Have been since I was 4! And of course, Ali is no exception! We did pick up a few goodies here….definitely worth the hell we paid traversing this ‘mall’.
While at the mall, we had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, which was the other reason we made the trip to the other coast. Ali loves this place! It really is cool inside. I’d totally love a room decorated with all the vegetation and stuff this place has. But dusting and cleaning would be a NIGHTMARE!
As a bonus to all the mayhem that this outlet mall provided us with, we had the genuine pleasure of waiting in line for 45 minutes with other little screaming pink girl things, all so that they could have things like this painted on their shiny, happy little faces:
Only for my girls…..this time it was a perfect weekend!
