Boo At The Zoo

Yesterday, Di and I took the boys to the Brookfield Zoo for their annual “Boo at the Zoo” thingy.  Instead of the lions staring out of their cages, wishing they could eat 4 and 5 year old children, the lions stare out of their cages, wishing they could eat small superheroes. 

Elijah, Luca and their cousins had a great time until Luca’s legs stopped working at the wolf enclosure.  His legs seemed to know the wolf enclosure was the farthest possible distance from our car.

It all started when I had the gall to take Luca’s picture.  I positioned the kids around this neat little wooden sign and rattled off a few iphone snaps.  When I turned to rejoin Diana, who was wondering aloud why they didn’t have a Pinot Noir stand by the cotton candy, Luca began to throw an epic fit.

“Hey hey hey, what’s wrong buddy?”

“You didn’t take my picture!”

“Yes I did.  I got a great shot of all you kids.”

“No!  I was turned around.  You didn’t get it.”

Holding out my phone, I showed him evidence to the contrary.  “No.  See?  You look great!”

Luca wasn’t having it.  He began wailing in hysterics.  I tried to make it better by snapping some close ups of Luca. But he became even more angry.

That’s when I realized Luca had crossed over from tired to legs not working tired.

“Uppie!  Uppie!” He screamed.  I coaxed him into riding on my shoulders.  But he quickly realized this was not punishment enough.  So he demanded to be carried like a baby.

Man, that kid weighs a ton.  Even being in peak physical condition, as I am in my imagination, I couldn’t even make it past the bears, who were gnawing on pumpkins supplied by the park.  Their expressions were that of, “If only this was a small superhero…”

I put Luca down and tried to explain this mode of transportation was not going to work for my arms.  Rather than spring to his feet and agree to walk the rest of the way, he slumped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.  Which gave me an idea.  I had Diana take the front half and I took the bottom half and we carried Luca like a sack of potatoes all the way to the dolphin tank, where they were relishing their status as cutest animals in the park, but secretly hoping a small superhero would fall in.

Eventually, we dragged him to the car, where he slept the whole way home, at which point he decided he didn’t need to go to bed for the next 4 hours.