I mentioned over the weekend that we took the Bean to the Tulsa Zoo for the first time to celebrate his birthday.  Here’s how it all went down.

We got to the zoo as it opened, thinking we’d beat the rush of people.  Wrong.  It was some sort of unsupervised, mouthy kid day at the zoo, because it was filled with those little monsters.  Luckily, they were all in matching yellow shirts so I knew which kids to avoid (and which ones to “accidentally” bump into the pond).  We rented one of their wagons to make the rounds in.  Bean was in Heaven: it had a buckle!  Have I mentioned that my OCD toddler’s idea of a good time is buckling and unbuckling everything?

I loved the wagon too because it meant that I didn’t have to carry two bags all of the zoo – my camera bag and the diaper bag.  We didn’t think it through and we just started leisurely strolling through the zoo, going into the boring (and out of order) exhibits at a casual pace.  Well, after about 30 minutes, Bean was DONE.  He was ready to go.  He was over the zoo.  Even his beloved buckle had lost its shine.

At that point, I told Jer we needed to to the greatest hits tour of the zoo – no more exhibits or stuff like that.  We needed to focus on the things that would excite Bean.  We fast-tracked it to the Sea Lion/Seal habitat, where Bean spontaneously started barking (because all animals at the zoo were “puppies”).  Barking aside, he loved it.  We stayed in the little cave watching them swim by for probably 10 minutes and he loved every second of it.  Every time they’d swim by, he’d yell “HI PUPPY!”, even though, if you asked him, he’d tell you they were “schnee wions”.  I love this kid.  :)

After the puppies sea lions, we went straight to the petting zoo, where the goats and sheep run free and where your kids are encouraged to pet them, brush them and love on them.  Cue Jer the Germaphobe dying slowly inside.

This is when we knew Bean was officially over the zoo.  Our kid LOVES puppies animals.  He will hug anything and everything that comes into his range (he even ran from us in the hopes he’d get to hug a gigantic, scary bison last year).  We went into the petting zoo and he froze.  He wasn’t scared (my child doesn’t know fear) at all; he was just tired and immune to the huggable nature of all of the puppies goats and sheep around him.

We tried to get him to pet this especially lazy goat (I think it’s wearing false teeth) but he wasn’t interested.  He just sat there looking at his fingers.

Knowing he loves helping with chores, we got a brush and tried to get him to help Daddy brush the falsie-wearing goat.  Nada.  He just put the brush on the goat and closed his eyes.

At that point, we decided to call it a day.  It was almost miserably hot out, Bean wasn’t feeling it and the mob of yellow-teed-monsters had us surrounded.  So, we headed to the car and, as soon as we left the petting zoo, Bean lost it.  Total nuclear melt down.  And it continued until we made it to the zoo exit, out the entrance and into the car.  As soon as he got into air conditioning, he was happy as a clam.  He is my son.  :)

We had a great hour or so at the zoo.  We got a ton of really cute pictures – we even took his two-year portraits there (hence the outfit change above).  But I think that two is still a little young to understand and enjoy the zoo (at least for Bean).  He loved seeing the giraffes, tigers, flamingos and all of the other puppies animals, but he was done with seeing things he could touch or lick after about the third habitat.

Overall, it was a success.  One that I’m happy enough with that I don’t know that we’ll repeat it for many-a-year.  :)