A couple of weeks ago, we took our first trip to the Houston Zoo. The weather was perfect and somebody, our little one, had a great time! So great, that yes, she napped on the way home which took quite a while because of traffic.
We were hesitant as we pulled up and saw so many school buses and thought how crowded it would be. Most of them must have been somewhere else and several were leaving as we came in. I remember field trip days and I felt sorry for the tired teachers who were wide eyed, counting and recounting kids, and about to board a bus for a long and loud ride back to the school house. How different my experience was about to be with my family of three!
Just taking it all in
We did a lot of walking and surprisingly, Lily wanted to walk more than ride in her stroller. Score one for us because we knew that would tire her out! And when she walked, she wanted to push the stroller. Too funny!
Her favorites seemed to be the giraffes and the monkeys.
We have some play zoo animals (thank you Karen!) at home so we had already been making animal sounds and teaching her. She caught on to the monkey sound pretty quick at home so when we saw them live, she of course had to chime in.
Such a good monkey...possible Halloween costume idea??
And the obligatory picture in the monkey cutout:
Lily thought it was pretty funny to do that!
We may be pretty partial to the monkeys too, but for a special reason. The first time we saw Lily was on a webinar from our adoption agency. They had just returned from a visit to their partner orphanages in China to see as many children as they could and to gather information on them. Then, they return to the United States and advocate for them, trying to find them their family.
One way they advocate is by putting on webinars. Each slide shows a picture of a child along with narration about the child's personality and development by the specialists who actually interacted and screened the child. The agency chooses an "American" name to call the child while they share information about her.
Well, we fell for this little one who they called Grace, wearing a monkey shirt. This was our first glimpse of our daughter! The sweet little girl, with a flower headband and a yellow monkey shirt.
Sorry for the poor picture quality - it's just a screenshot from the webinar. I kept this on my phone and would look at it throughout each day (and not just once or twice, but, hundreds of times throughout every day!) just wondering what she was like and now I know. Lily Grace is just perfect!
And the obligatory picture in the monkey cutout:
We may be pretty partial to the monkeys too, but for a special reason. The first time we saw Lily was on a webinar from our adoption agency. They had just returned from a visit to their partner orphanages in China to see as many children as they could and to gather information on them. Then, they return to the United States and advocate for them, trying to find them their family.
One way they advocate is by putting on webinars. Each slide shows a picture of a child along with narration about the child's personality and development by the specialists who actually interacted and screened the child. The agency chooses an "American" name to call the child while they share information about her.
Well, we fell for this little one who they called Grace, wearing a monkey shirt. This was our first glimpse of our daughter! The sweet little girl, with a flower headband and a yellow monkey shirt.
A day after we went to the zoo, we watched Barney Visits the Zoo which incorporated live footage of animals from a zoo. I wish I had a picture of her face when she saw some of the animals we saw on our trip - it was priceless! The connections were definitely being made. We paused Barney and pulled up a few pics we had and she just kept looking back and forth. It's crazy how her brain is working with all the stimulus she has every day. I can almost see those wheels turning in there!
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