Week 16 Day 3: Zoogenic times were had by all

Here is my advice to the future sixth graders of America (including my son): If you are at the zoo and you are holding, say, a pencil, don't be an asshole and throw it over the glass down into the gorilla enclosure. Because so help me god if I hadn't been distracted by my baby and I had seen you do that I would have gone all Angry Mom on your ass.

So, yeah, we went to the Detroit Zoo today and I did, indeed, watch a gorilla eat a pencil that some idiot kid tossed into his enclosure. Unfortunately I didn't witness the kid throw in the pencil because I was preoccupied by my beautiful baby boy. But I did hear someone in the small cluster of the boys gathered there say, "Who threw that?" The gorilla waited until after the boys left to get the pencil and he promptly started munching on it. I reported it to a zoo employee and she said she would "call it in," as she picked up her radio or whatever. But it's not like a zookeeper is going to jump into the enclosure to wrestle a broken #2 Dixon Ticonderoga away from a gorilla. I just hope he doesn't get a perforated bowel or something.

This reminded me of being at the zoo on an elementary field trip when a kid from my class whose name I no longer remember and who is probably now in jail, was spitting at the seals below us. It was not a difficult target as the large animal was directly below us and not moving so he was very successful in this endeavor. I was extremely disturbed by this but felt powerless to do anything. After all, I didn't want him to turn around and spit on me. I did not understand why someone would want to do that to an animal. I still don't. I think that's when I started to find the cruelty of children to other children more understandable than cruelty of children towards animals. I still feel this way, though the cruelty is no longer limited to children.

Not to say we didn't have fun at the zoo. And by "we" I mean Gavin, of course, and Lisa and Brenden and Lisa's mom Dale. The boys weren't much into the animals, but that's largely because they couldn't see them most of the time. I mean, if you're a 9-month-old (10-month-old in Brenden's case) and a lion walks right up to your stroller, you're going to notice it. But if that same lion is asleep on a super tall rock ledge you're not. There's no frame of reference to know what to look for. I'd say the boys liked the flamingos the best because they could see them from stroller height and there were a whole bunch of them moving around. Hard not to notice. Gavin also really liked the peacocks they have wandering around loose at the zoo because he could get right up close to them without leaving the confines of his ride. He may have also liked the ape house, but it's possible he just liked the glass I was holding him in front of and didn't even notice the apes on the other side.

Gavin took his afternoon nap at the zoo. A stroller-nap is not the highest quality nap a dude could want, but he did sack out for about an hour. He woke up when we got to the red panda exhibit and we stopped strolling while a docent lady pointed him out to us way up in a tree. She was very nice and very into red pandas. I think she might have been slightly offended when Dale asked if there were any real pandas at the zoo (there aren't). But a red panda hardly looks like what one would call a panda in the first place. They look like a cross between a raccoon and a fox. They are adorable. No doubt some guy in Virginia is breeding them as pets right this very minute.

Tomorrow is Gavin's 9-month check up. We'll get an accurate weight for the first time in months. I'm guessing he weighs at least 23 lbs. He's a heavy little dude. My back is killing me. I think I need to build him a chair lift inside the house.