Brookfield Zoo

I feel like we need to get some Elijah spoiling in before E2 shows up. So he can remember how much we loved him before the cuter, more helpless version of him shows up in a couple months. Hence, the 100+ Elijah Town.

Last Saturday, Diana suggested we all go to the Brookfield Zoo. I immediately congratulated her on her spoiling technique and we piled into our dented Subaru and drove across suburbia.

I had no idea how large and awesome Brookfield Zoo is. You know, if each of my readers convinced 100 people to read this blog, companies would give me money for endorsements like this. And then I could quit my job and blog about being a dad full time. But then that would mean Diana would have to be in a constant state of churning out children to keep me in material.

Anyhoo, The Brookfield Zoo’s largeness and awesomeness did not exactly work to our advantage. Elijah’s smallness of step, combined with his easily distracted-ness, multiplied by my lack of planning resulted in us missing all of the cool, big stinky animals because Eli became exhausted after 3 hours of covering 10 feet of zoo. But we got to see 10 different kinds of meerkats before Eli got too tired to continue.

The best part of the day, aside for the $9 “dino” chicken nuggets Eli refused to eat, was the giant carousel. Ask anyone over the age of 6 and they’ll tell you carousels are lame because they just go in a circle and feature weird plastic animals impaled on golden poles. Ask anyone under the age of 6 and they’ll tell you carousels are totally awesome because they go in a circle and feature cool plastic animals impaled on golden poles. Thankfully we were with the later group.

Elijah was so enthralled with the carousel that he pitched a massive fit when the ride was over and he had to get off his plastic turtle. Which, in my book is a stamp of approval.

For days afterwards, Eli delighted in recounting the stories of seeing penguins at the zoo. We did not visit the penguin exhibit. He must be thinking of meerkats.