Momnesia

Zootastic Photos!

AUGUSTA, GA - So this weekend we lost our collective mind and decided to take ELEVEN people - mostly short folks - to Riverbanks Zoo. It made for a full Saturday of being-outside-ness, an activity that, frankly, I can't stand because of it necessitates close proximity to the estimated 900 thousand different kinds of living insects that populate the outside. Really, is it necessary that there are so many?

Not that the children noticed. They were too busy being normal tweens, vamping for the camera and shrieking with delight.

Except my daughter. MY daughter was trying to pull a Dorothy Parker /Sylvia Plath kind of move by opening Amber's sliding van door while they were doing 70 MPH down I-20. Great. Couldn't she have inherited my - well, I'll think of something - instead of my tendency towards overwrought teenage histrionics? Or, could she at least wait until she is 12 to start demonstrating them?

Luckily, nothing happened. Amber pulled over, got the demon-child re-situated, engaged the child locks and we made it to the zoo on time, with all accounted for. We patted tortoises, rode the carousel, watched a 3D Spongebob Squarepants movie that made me throw up (huzzah!), ate overpriced and very dry burgers, bought overpriced pappy crap from the gift shop, and shoved all five of the children into one photo booth for pictures.

But the highlight of the day - besides Emmie getting to eat her first ICEE (for the love of god don't try to take it from her), was the pony rides.






At $5 a pop, I don't even want to think about how much those rides cost us. Check out the last photo, of Annie McFanny, and the zoo staffer leading the horse. Do you see the expression on her face? That's not a candid moment. That's how she looked and talked all day. What's up with that? Is she some kind of indentured servant?

Anyhoodle...

Poor Jim was the only man along for the ride, except for little Conner, who's not yet quite old enough to offset the wave of estrogen that was me, Amy, Kerri and her 6-month-old daughter, the Lovely Lila, and a pregnant Amber. Yes, menfolk, there was talk of tampons at one time.

Being the good sport he is, Jim spent much of the day on reconnaissance (a word I didn't realize that I could spell) when one - or more - of us wandered off.

And Scott? You all knew that was coming, right? He spent the day sleeping. No cow slobber for him, I'm afraid; no refreshing odor of elephant dung.

He also missed out on: "No, Emmie, DO NOT CLIMB IN THERE WITH THE MONKEYS;"



and he missed several hundred renditions of, "Come back here RIGHT NOW, young lady;"



and one very delightful tantrum that ended with, "Look, I'm sorry that you dropped your random-ass stick into the giraffe exhibit, but mommy is not going to climb down there and get kicked in the head. Just go pick up another stick, honey."

Actually, as it turns out, giraffes don't kick when they fight. They do this weirdo neck-swinging/head-butting thing.