No, we weren't sleeping there -- the zoo has come to us. Although we all enjoyed the family camping trip over the weekend, I think the high level of physical activity and/or change of schedule temporarily transformed the kids into wild animals, as characterized by constant primal screaming, fighting over food, fighting over territory, selective listening, and general poor temperament. Super fun times here.
Things were so bad yesterday, that after Abby had her final weepy episode of the day and went to sleep, I poured myself a shot of scotch and sipped it while crying (all out blubbering, if I'm being totally honest) over the end of the While You Were Sleeping movie with Sandra Bullock and then 30 minutes of a ridiculous teen TV show about gymnastics, Make It or Break It. Poor Scott probably thought I had lost it, but kindly let me have my hour of self pity. (Sorry if this is too much information, but the tough reality of parenting is that there are as many 'lows' of parenting as there are 'highs'.)
If today had gone as badly as the last few days, I really don't know what I would have done. My prayers for more patience and shorter minutes weren't enough. Fortunately, the kids returned to their normal only semi-annoying and semi-trained selves today and played nicely with some friends for several consecutive hours while I talked to an actual adult female without too many interruptions or food requests.
In addition to the zoo here, the family enjoyed a mostly nice visit to the Philadelphia Zoo with Grandma and Grandad on Monday. We went up in the tethered Zoo balloon and saw a spectacular 360 view of the city. It's been at least a decade since I had been to the Philly Zoo and they have made some amazing improvements -- Big Cat Falls, Avian Center, etc. Really impressive! In hindsight, I should have scheduled this zoo visit for a different week so the kids could 'recover' from camping before diving into another activity, but it didn't really occur to me they would be so tired since they didn't have to do the packing. Overall, the kids and I definitely enjoyed our zoo visit. Thanks Grandma and Grandad!
Philadelphia
Tortoises on the Move
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