Mothering Munchkins: A reprieve from rainy weather

I'm exhausted and really should be in bed, but lately I've been having trouble falling asleep when so many thoughts are whirling around in my head. In fact, I've recently discovered the joy that is Unisom and am afraid that I am rapidly becoming addicted. So, in an attempt to rid my brain of all these thoughts and fall asleep naturally tonight, I thought I'd blog.

The weather has been absolutely breathtaking the past two days. January and February are typically our "rainy months"...or as rainy as South Texas can get. This year it's rained more than it has since the spring of 2007 and I think we're at twice the rainfall levels we usually are this time of year. So needless to say, we're all a little tired of the rain. Yesterday and today we got a nice reprieve from all the rain. It has been sunny and breezy with a high of about 65 degrees. Perfect weather. Yesterday the kids and I got out to go grocery shopping, but other than that we didn't really get to take advantage of the nice day. (It was still really muddy out from all the rain.) Today it had dried out considerably, so I decided to take the kids to the zoo for the afternoon. We have a family pass and since we can also take up to five guests for free each visit, I invited my neighbor Missy and her 1-year-old son to come along (she's also pregnant and due a few weeks after me). Her husband works nights so both of our husbands were sleeping and we like to get the kids out of the house so they don't wake their daddies up.

Now, I knew it was risky going to the zoo on a Saturday, in the afternoon, on such a pretty day, but I was willing to fight the crowds for an hour or two of getting outside and enjoying the weather. As expected, the whole city had also decided to go to the zoo for the afternoon, but there are several overflow parking lots so we parked in a nearby stadium parking lot and walked the quarter mile down to the zoo entrance. (Note I said "down," this will come into play later on in the story.) Once we got inside the zoo, the crowds were actually manageable so we were able to maneuver to my two favorite toddler-friendly areas: the petting zoo (which is really just a bunch of goats, but Shiphrah loves it) and the toddler zone (a lovely mini-zoo specifically for kids under 5, with a little river for the kids to play in when it's warm out and plenty of fenced in open areas for them to run around). We had to wait in line for a few minutes at the petting zoo, but it was worth Shiphrah's excitement at getting to brush the goats (they have a little bucket of animal brushes for the kids to use) and my amusement at watching her carefully select a brush, chase a goat down until she could brush him a few times, and then return to the brush bucket to repeat the process (each goat had to have his own brush). Sorry, no pictures at this point (I can't really take pictures very well and keep up with two kids, haven't learned that trick yet), but here's a few pictures of her with the goats from our last visit during the summer months:

Here she is examining the bucket of brushes...

Very carefully selecting a brush...

And now to find a willing victim.

After the petting zoo we headed over to the toddler zone and let the munchkins play in the grassy lawn for a few minutes. I only got a couple of pictures with my cell phone, but hopefully Missy will share some of hers with me.

Our three munchkins hanging out together (Kirk just wanted to stare at the grass the whole time).

Playing on the alligator teeter-totter together.

Kirk and Micah enjoying some boy-time. (Micah is about 3 months older than Kirk.)

By then it was getting to be naptime and Missy was getting hungry, so we headed out of the zoo and back up the hill to our cars. UP. THE. HILL. Pushing a double stroller. Oh my goodness, I have not exerted myself that much in months!! I felt like such a wimp! But when I told Avery about it later, he couldn't believe I had made it up the hill, so I felt better about myself then. (It's a really steep hill!) So yeah, my legs are already feeling sore and I'm certain I will wake up very uncomfortable in the morning.