I had the perfect plan for our trip to the zoo today, and as with all perfect plans it somehow went a little awry. Jack has been taking a very short morning nap around 9 or so and it usually lasts 30 minutes. We were supposed to be at the zoo at 10. So I put him in the car at 9:10 with the idea that we would drive, he would fall asleep, and we would finish his nap sitting in the parking lot.

Well, he didn’t fall asleep right away, but since we were so early I kept driving around and waiting. I knew he was tired. He finally dozed off at 9:40. Darn it. That would make us late for the zoo. And to make matters worse, Julie and Mac were already there and Mac missed his morning nap all together.

So much for planning. He had a great nap though, as you can see:






















We finally made it inside and joined up with Julie, Mac and Jeff. Thank goodness for Jeff – it was so nice to have an extra adult around to help out. He’s a trooper to mosey around the zoo with two little boys. I hope he got some good pictures because my camera was dying. I did mange to capture how the boys felt right around snack/lunch/nap time:














































Jeez, you’d think we were throwing rocks at
them or something. (We weren’t. Just in case you were wondering.)

At lunch they really enjoyed hanging out together and comparing the taste of French Fries to peanut butter. There was a small amount of toddler roughhousing going on as well.






















All in all I think they had fun.






















One thing Julie and I have noticed over the past year is how often we have to just let them be boys, and try not to think too much. In this instance, I had given them some little snacks. They promptly scattered the snacks all over the stroller, and then proceeded to eat them off the dirty floor.






















Yuck. I guarantee you a year ago we would have freaked out at this behavior. Now we both shrug our shoulders and move on to the next thing.

It was so great to get out and to see Julie and Mac. Mac’s baby brother is going to be here soon, and then we will really have our hands full.

In sleeping news (isn’t there always sleeping news in this house?), Jack is transitioning from a Type B baby to a Type A baby. What does that mean? Well, ask Dr. Weissbluth, the smartest man on the face of the earth.

Basically it means that he goes to bed when it’s bedtime, whether he’s asleep or not. It was working fine at night – I would put him in the crib, he would cry for a total of 10 seconds, lie down, and be done with it. Naps were a different story. Maybe he realized they were shorter, maybe he knew I was supposed to get him after an hour so as long as he could stay awake that long he could go without a nap, who knows. But I was determined to turn him into a Type A baby, and this was the best week to do it.

Unfortunately that ended with a lot of one nap days. One nap is not enough for the little man, and by the late afternoon he was miserable. Finally today, however, the work paid off. I put him in the crib and explained he needed to go to sleep. I left the room and for one solid hour I listened to him talk, and play and read and throw things. Finally, when I was just about to go in and get him it sounded like he was settling down. I waited. I crept around on tiptoe. Then I went to peek:






















Will wonders never cease. He is sleeping. What a relief.