Visiting Denver: "Hi Nina!"

While in Denver last month, we took all the kids to the Denver Zoo one morning. The weather was just chilly enough that the zoo wasn't very crowded, but warm enough that we were comfortable there. Adelaida really enjoyed the animals!

The very first animal exhibit we saw was the hyena exhibit. Keep in mind that Adelaida had just started putting two words together and has never seen a hyena before (as far as I know). Adelaida saw the hyenas, shouted "puppy!" and I told her "those are hyenas. They look like puppies but they are hyenas. Can you say hyena?" She watched the hyena for a minute, then stretched her arm out, waved her hand, and said "Hi ... Nina!" Isn't it funny how kids hear something new and mold it to fit their experiences? Adelaida had never heard the word hyena before, but she knew that I often asked her to say hi to an animal so thought I was asking her to say hi to the puppy named Nina!

Elizabeth, Sarah, and Adelaida are pretty good about staying with us, but we did have one incident where a child ran off full-speed before any of us could stop her. We were walking from one exhibit to another when we came into view of a large grassy area that was not part of any exhibit. The grassy area was filled with geese -- probably forty or fifty geese -- and Sarah ran ahead of us to see them. On the sidewalk in front of the geese was a man with a stroller and two young children. He was squatting down to point out the geese to his kids and Sarah ran right up to him, put her hand on his leg, and started pointing with him! He took it really well and started talking to Sarah, asking her if she had ever seen geese before and listening to her excited babbling. Eventually we caught up to her, and eventually she realized that the man she had been talking with was a stranger -- the whole scene was just so funny!

The weather forecast indicated a very slight chance of rain, so Adelaida sported her rain slicker for the zoo excursion! We didn't get any rain, but the rain slicker is just too cute to pass up whenever we have an opportunity for her to wear it.


Elizabeth is two years older than Adelaida and Sarah is six months older than Adelaida, and Adelaida loves to do what older and bigger kids are doing. So when Elizabeth and Sarah stood at the glass to watch the birds, Adelaida went right up there and stood next to them -- despite the fact that she was too short to actually see anything!

Near the end of the visit, Adelaida was getting tired and Sarah was getting bored with the animals, so they worked out a nice arrangement that benefited everyone: Sarah pushed Adelaida in the stroller! Sarah did a pretty good job of steering: she ran Adelaida into stationary objects only a few times.


We ended the trip to the zoo with a short train ride. Adelaida was pretty tired by this time and wanted to be held. She wasn't very excited about leaving her stroller, but was consoled by the opportunity to sit on my lap.


It was a great trip, full of fun memories and lots of animals!