I have many great memories of the Bristol zoo, where I used to meet up with friends fairly often. We were members there too, and it was also small, and even closer to where we lived. It has lovely flowers. Just over year ago, at the London zoo with Annika, I was impressed that she had spent 6 hours looking at animals. And I realized that I remembered Nina playing with the little toddler rides - you know, where you put a coin in and it jiggles gently for 1 minute while your child pretends they are on a bus. I remembered Nina peeing on the playground, being afraid of hand dryers in the bathroom, running on the grass, wanting to go on the inflatable slide, playing with friends, climbing things, climbing other things, splashing in the pretend creek. What I didn't remember was Nina engaging with animals. I'm sure she looked at some. I do remember taking her to see the seals, which were (naturally) swimming around. Their pool area had a gentle artificial wave-maker and I remember watching the seals and her shouting "Mummy look! A door, a splash splash door!". She was more interested in the door that pushed the water back and forth to make waves than she was in the seals.
Well, Annika loves the zoo. Her favourites are the giraffes. She likes to take her toy giraffe to show the real giraffes. She wants to be a giraffe doctor when she grows up. We were there a few months ago and she watched them for half an hour, and then came home and announced that she wanted carrots, cut in sticks just like the giraffes had. The other day we were there, and the giraffes turned out not to be too interested in her toy giraffe. The penguins, however, were fascinated:
Nina still likes the more physical things. Here she is on a swing.
1 comment:
That is so fascinating how into animals Annika is and how Nina is so much more interested in machines and toys and physical things. I remember going to the Bristol zoo with Nina! It was a lot of fun. And yes I definitely remember her attachment to the very small ride.
Thank you for writing these. It's wonderful to see it from the other side as I wait for G to develop likes and dislikes that make any kind of sense, helps me wait to see her personality emerge. We used to say we couldn't wait to "meet" her, but in a very real sense we are still waiting to meet most of the "her" that will make up who she is.
I hope she likes zoos. If you all ever come visit us down here in the farthest corner of America... we'll go to the zoo. The Audubon zoo is a really amazing zoo. I wish it were closer - I'd LOVE to take Annika there and show her the giraffes, the alligators, the birds at the aquarium... You know when we were last at this zoo, we saw one giraffe peeing and the other giraffe... well... drinking it. I'm not sure I'd like Annika to see that. We were VERY amused and then after we thought about it a bit more, somewhat disturbed as that can't be normal giraffe behavior... can it?
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