We got up early this morning and Ky had his hotel breakfast. As we were getting ready and driving, I kept telling Kyler we were going to go to the zoo and see the monkeys. Every time I would say the word "monkeys," Kyler would say "ah ah ah" just like the monkeys say. He was excited.
Then we dropped Daddy off at "school" this morning (a training for an IT certification) and headed to the zoo. We were one of the first ones there. In fact, we were a little early and stopped in the gift shop first. I showed him the stuffed animal monkeys and he looked at me like "Seriously? These are the monkeys you got me all excited about?" So we went walking through the zoo in search for the monkeys ("ah ah ah"). The antelopes were pretty close to the walkway and Kyler was pretty interested. He stood up in the stroller and told them something.
We finally spotted some monkeys but they were a little underwhelming to Ky since they didn't make a noise like he thought they would. But under the bridge were a bunch of koi fish. We bought some food pellets and Kyler thought it was so much fun to throw them in the water and watch the fish swarm. But we had to keep moving because he could hear some noisy monkeys. To get to them, we had to walk through the gorilla exhibit.
He had a blast walking through it, especially a little cave-tunnel thing. I finally had to pick him up to get him to move on.
Unfortunately, by the time we got to the noisy monkeys they had stopped being noisy at all. So poor Ky didn't get to see any monkeys say "ooo ooo ooo ah ah ah." Dang! But he did get to play on the gorilla statues on our way back down to the cat complex.
The cats were one of Ky's favorites. We got to see a male lion very close up which was pretty amazing. I don't remember ever being that close to one that was awake and walking around. Here he is lying down while one of the females is up.
We also saw lots of tigers. This one was yawning and sort of growling when we went by. Some other kids were making similar noises, trying to get him to do it again. Ky joined right in and growled at that tiger. It was pretty cute.
We had to go to the petting zoo. Ky tried feeding this hay to some of the goats and gave one a couple pats on the back before trying to grab its tail.
He was more interested in the chickens. Too bad most of them were in a pen. I kept thinking one of them would peck his little fingers but they were more interested in the feed.
We went into the barn to see what else was going on. There was a very noisy rooster in there. Kyler loved it and kept trying to say "cock-a-doodle-doo." It came out closer to "cockle-cooooo." Oh, and of course he tried to pick up some goat poop pellets while we were in there. Gross!
One of the best exhibits at Omaha's zoo is the penguins and aquarium. A couple of the penguins were pretty friendly and would come right up to the glass where Kyler's finger was. We talked about how they waddle and did it with our fingers "waddle waddle waddle." Ky would say "wawa wawa wawa." He also noticed how they would shake their heads and did a pretty good imitation of that. Maybe I should be re-thinking his Halloween costume!
One of my favorite animals is the giraffe. This was our first stop but I wanted to go back one more time. I could tell that was a good call by the amount of interest Ky had in the statue in front of the giraffe hut. He gave it a couple good pats.
Kyler didn't know what to think about the giraffes walking toward him when he was standing alone. He would keep backing up until he reached me but couldn't take his eyes off them. So funny!
We walked through the butterfly pavilion and got all hot and sweaty. One butterfly landed on a lady's ear and hung out there for a while. On the way out they had some honey bees on display. Ky liked saying "bzzzz" while we watched them. We took one last look at the penguins and then hit the jungle before we took off. Ky's favorite was definitely this bridge we crossed. I was impressed by how well he did - better than some of the bigger kids.
On the way out, we stopped back at the gift shop so Ky could pick out a stuffed animal. I gave him four choices based on what he seemed to be most interested in at the zoo - penguin, male lion, monkey, and giraffe. He chose the giraffe over and over again. When we got back to the hotel, he pretended to feed his giraffe Fruit Loops. And he was all cuddled up with it after he fell asleep. What a sweetie!
