Guess where we went yesterday? Yep, back to the zoo. It had been 9 days since our last visit, and you would have thought it was 8 years. Jack was so excited on the way there he never stopped talking. And when Nick came for a visit yesterday afternoon, Jack walked right up to him and said “Zoo, animals, rhino, baboon.” While this isn’t exactly a sentence, it conveyed the message and for once I didn’t have to translate.

I took a few pictures just for fun. These next two are of the tortoises. Jack refuses to recognize them as anything other than turtles. I stood there explaining to him that turtles live in the water and these – the tortoises – live on land. He listened patiently, pointed back at the exhibit and shouted “turtles!” Some of the other moms were looking at me like I was crazy. I don’t care really. My child can differentiate an orangutan from a baboon from a monkey. I am proud of him.

On to the photos. Even though he called it a turtle, he still was able to point out that it was heavy.

























And in this picture he had just finished counting all five tortoises and then saying “Ah ah ah” like the Count on Sesame Street:
























Mostly he liked climbing on the fence though:

















We moved on to the capybara, one of my favorite animals. It is the world’s largest rodent, and has been relegated to the old alligator swamp. Their used to be an entire heard of capybara, but we only saw this one. Jack pointed out that he was sleepy:

























I tried very hard to get a good picture of the baby orangutan, but this was the best shot I got:


















He loves these animals and spends quite a bit of time pointing at them and saying “tay-tang” at the top of his little voice.

By the time we got to the zebra, Jack had figured out an inventive new way to view animals:




















This is fortunate for me, because holding him up has gotten more difficult.

Thank you all for your kind comments about my enormous belly. I’m starting to feel like a beached whale and I still have seven weeks to go!