The kids were both excited to sleep at a hotel. I was shocked Hudson cared at all. I sometimes forget how quickly the babies grow up, thanks to their older siblings.
He roared at the lion and Audrey told him how to tell the Daddies from the Mommy lions.
She enjoyed the elephants quite a bit.
But he liked these little Tamarins the best. We could've watched them all day. They were inside an air conditioned building so I nearly didn't go in thinking it would be all spiders and scorpions or fish. But there were a ton of monkeys, free roaming ducks, and various small animals hidden inside.
This little guy gave Audrey a high five through the glass. (And nearly a heart attack because we weren't expecting that!)
We loved how close you could get to them.
The funniest part of the day was when we stopped to feed the fish, turtles, ducks and swans. I squatted down (a frightful sight for this big pregnant momma) to share fish food with Son who was in a stroller for his safety and my sanity. Audrey reached down to get some fish food and when she popped her hand back up to throw the food over the fence my new sunglasses went with the food...into the pond. It was one of those slow motion moments. They floated up into the air, over the fence, just past the rocks and down into the pond. We all watched them slowly sink. Sigh. It was too funny. I told Audrey that the fish could use them to dress up for Halloween and not to fret over it.
Audrey brought her monkey and curled up in the middle of her bed.
Sadly the door was really loud so Hudson woke up as Barker left Saturday morning. It was early. Early early. Ugh.
Luckily I had planned ahead and brought strawberries, bananas, apples and breakfast bars for the kids to snack on. Hudson helped himself and watched a cartoon in the dark he'd never seen before. Something about dump trucks. Audrey wanted to sleep but he didn't want her to miss out. So he ran to the side of her bed, hit her with her monkey and yelled "Up!"
She reluctantly awoke and allowed the little monster into her bed with his offerings of a banana, but only after she peered out of a window to see if the sun was in fact up. She was so tired she just couldn't believe it wasn't still nighttime.
They thought curling up in a bed to watch a cartoon was the coolest thing. We don't do TVs in bedrooms here so it was quite the novelty.
Once 9am finally rolled around the kids and I headed over to the Little Rock Zoo. It was a beautiful day and I was very pleasantly surprised that it never became crowded. I usually only do things like this during the week because I loathe crowds. Perk of being at stay at home mom.
Hudson was taken aback by some of the animals.
I think Meat Pie's favorite big animal was the rhino.
I had to document how uninterested they looked. They had a blast but every time I'd grab for my phone they'd get these bored looks on their faces. Sadly in the rush to pack I didn't grab my camera. Story of my life. I'm sure when baby #3 arrives I'll forget someone's shoes on a daily basis.
I've had several first time parents ask me for words of wisdom or parenting advice. Most of the time I say "If you've got dogs, or neighbors, or neighbors with dogs, get a white noise machine and crank it up." But many times I've replied "No longer buy expensive sunglasses." And they always look at me like "That's the best you can do?" But think about how bummed you'd be if you still spent as much on your trendy sunglasses as you did your iPhone, just to watch them slowly sink into a pond over a fence.
Notice I said NEW sunglasses. These barely lasted a month. Huddie dug my last pair out of my purse in Aug, snapped them in two, then promptly handed them to his dad.
My kids have yet to break a vase, mirror, coffee cup, or window. But if I slip up and forget to take my glasses off in the car and have to hide them in my bag, they'll sniff them out and destroy them in record time. Audrey has only done it on accident. But Hud, well that's another story.
So other parents may tell you all kinds of things like "sleep while you can, get on wait lists for the good schools early, have firemen install your car seat" etc. I will tell you to quit spending a lot of money on sunglasses if you can't remember to take them off in the car and put them in a hard case or visor clip every single time. You can thank me later.
Anyway- back to the zoo. Through my squinting burning eyes trying to navigate in the bright sunshine I stumbled upon a toddler playground. This zoo had several playgrounds. Good ones. They were helpful for wearing out the human animals that frequent the zoo.
Hud was nervous to slide at first so he went back down the stairs on his belly.
But eventually my beautiful boy found some courage.
And I only had to hold his hand once. Then it was game on and eventually I had to pry him off the slides. He loved them.
He also enjoyed dumbo.
Audrey in the scarecrow, of course. She still very much likes the Wizard of Oz.
Son as a farmer. Adorable.
Oh and both kids enjoyed watching this baby ape swing. Pretty cute.
Back at the hotel I put H down for a late afternoon nap. Barker arrived a couple of hours later so I took Audrey down to swim before dinner.
She said it was her favorite part of the trip. This was the first summer of her little life that we haven't had a pool, since we just had one day to find a house here and we weren't shown any with a pool, and none of us are coping well. I grew up with a lake, river, and pool. So I don't understand having kids in the south and not having a pool. I just can't wrap my mind around it.
Luckily, I had remembered to bring a pool football which she made good use of. She looked at me like I was crazy when I asked her to wear arm floaties, just in case, since I'm not as quick while pregnant as I otherwise would be.
When we returned to our room Barker pointed out that Huddie needs a Peppa intervention. He recently discovered his sister's Peppa episodes on the iPads. He had 2 iPads playing Peppa simultaneously. He doesn't often pay much attention to a TV but oh he loves some Peppa Pig.
We went to dinner and to catch the end of the LSU game when a woman asked Barker when he was going to MAKE me cut his son's hair. Ha! We both laughed out loud at the thought of him MAKING me do anything. Good luck!
On Sunday Barker left again, early. Which meant Hud Muffin was up again, early. Which meant Audrey was whining about being woken up again, early. Ugh. So I took them for a big breakfast and then to the State Park to watch Daddy work.
It had rained over night and was so humid, Hudson had Nana-like church hair. It was shaped like a football helmet but with lovely blond poofy waves. Wish my hair would do that when it's shorter.
Suddenly the sky opened up and it began to pour. So I raced the kids to my nearby car where Audrey played with her Hot Dot cards and watched the Beatles cartoons while Hudson napped. After a half hour or so of coaching in the pouring rain my beautiful drowned rat of a husband joined us in the car where he proceeded to tell me he didn't feel well. That's not something you hear often from him. So I drove home while everyone else slept, and by the time we reached Louisiana poor Barker was running a fever.
So even though we missed having him with us while we had all kinds of fun in Arkansas, I guess its a good thing he had to work because so far neither the kids or myself have caught whatever he did. Poor guy.
