Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Today started out pretty rough.  I think I’ve mentioned before that we lock Drew in his bedroom at night at home so that he can’t get out.  It is for his safety.  I have done the same here in GA.  Well, last night he started knocking on his door at about 1:30 am and wanted apple juice.  Say what?!  So I got him a juice box, told him it wasn’t time to get up and that he needed to go back to bed, locked the door behind me and went back to bed.  Then I kept waking up wondering if he was asleep or not.  So I would get up and listen at his door.  Sure enough, he was up playing.  I just let him be and went back to bed.  This happened a couple of times.  Then about 3:30 he was knocking again but I don’t remember what he wanted that time.  So the same cycle happened all over again.  And every time I got up he was playing.  Then he knocked again at 6:30 and said he had to go potty.  A nice big poopie first thing in the morning.  Thaaaanks!  I was putting him back in his room and I told him if he wanted to go swimming he had to go to sleep.  I laid back down and my alarm went off at 7.  Ahhhh!!!  I went and checked on him about 7:15 and he was sound asleep.  On a normal day I would have crawled right back in bed and slept too.  But we had plans to meet Amanda and Adeline at the zoo.  So I got in the shower instead.  I got ready, packed our lunches, got the girls up and then woke Drew up and carried him to the car in his pj’s hoping he would fall back asleep since we had a 30 minute ride to meet our friends.  No such luck!  On top of all of this the skies opened up about 7 am so I wasn’t even sure what the weather was going to be like for the day.  If it wasn’t for Amanda being adventurous and saying let’s just go for it and take our chances, I would not have gone.  The skies didn’t look too friendly.  And Drew thinks he doesn’t like the zoo.

We met Amanda and Adeline at Brain Balance.  The two other families couldn’t make it.  :-(  When we were taking the turn to go BB, Drew said “Where are we going?”  I’m sure he thought he was going to BB where they make him work.   I told him we were going to the zoo with Adeline.  He said “No Zoo!”  When we pulled up to BB, Coach Jessica must have seen us pull in.  She stuck her head out the door and said where are you guys going?  I said we’re going to the zoo but first we’re going to come in and use the bathroom and change.  After I got him changed Jessica asked him where he was going.  He said “The Zoo.”  I almost fell over backwards.  Usually if he doesn’t like the answer to the question he is being asked he will either just ignore you or say “I don’t know.”  Then she asked him what he was going to see at the zoo and he listed off zebras, giraffes, lions, elephants, gorillas.  This whole conversation made me giddy.  I was still worried about how the day would go considering that he didn’t sleep and he thinks he doesn’t like the zoo.  The reason why I say he thinks he doesn’t like it is because every time we go he says no zoo but then does just fine when we get there.  Today was no exception.  When you first walk into the zoo there are flamingos to your left.  He’s never seen a flamingo before and he was quite interested.  In fact, when we were leaving all of the girls went toward the gift shop and said “Flamingos” and started running to where they were.  I didn’t know he really paid attention to what they were called.  That was cool.  He had a really good day considering the circumstances.  He got a little mean with Adeline towards the end of the day. 

He did some things that I don’t think he would have done in the past.  He tried to feed a giraffe.  That was something really neat the zoo offered.  I knew he wouldn’t do it when it came down to it.  All he really wanted to do was pet it.  But at least he tried.  I feel like he was really interested and really looked at the animals today.  The Naked Mole Rat exhibit had a tunnel that the kids could crawl through to get inside the building and then a tunnel to crawl through to get back outside.  I’m not sure he would have wanted to do that in the past but him and Adeline did it several times.  The Atlanta Zoo has Giant Pandas which he has never seen before because Knoxville doesn’t.  Today they were playing around and it was super cute!  Drew sat down under the rail right at the glass and just watched.  I think he would have stayed there all day if I let him.  We took a little train ride that went around the kids section of the zoo.  The train goes thru tunnels that are pretty dark and he didn’t really seem to mind it much except the kids in the back of the train acting like a bunch of hoodlums screaming and yelling.  He really doesn’t like loud things.  I had to put his headphones on him for just a few minutes.  When the train ride was over he said “Goodbye little train.”  After the train ride we had seen all of the animals and headed out.  

Getting in and out of Atlanta is interesting to say the least.  Amanda and I always end up going some sort of convoluted way.  It’s especially fun when the Garmin and Google Maps don’t agree.  But we always have fun

We went to Menchie’s after the zoo.   Drew did not want to go to Menchie’s he wanted to go Target.  Now there’s a surprise!!   I’m so thankful Amanda still wanted to go this morning despite the unfriendly skies.  It was really great day.

The whole way home from Menchie’s he said “I want to go to Target” over and over and over!!  While I was getting him ready to go to the pool he said “I want to go to Target.”  Are you seeing a theme here??  I told him we weren’t going to Target because he made bad choices today that pushing Adeline away from the buttons at the zoo was a bad choice.  He said “I’m sorry.”  It took everything in me not to go straight to Target. 

We finished up the day with a swim, dinner, BB exercises, a bath and bed.  He identified all 5 scents again tonight.  4 of them on the first try, 1 of them on the second!  

It could be another fun filled night of no sleep.  It has been storming here and he is terrified of storms.  It seems to have settled down a bit.  Hopefully, they are moving out.

Tomorrow we have our session at BB and then head home!!  Pray for safe travel.  Which by the way, is getting REALLY old!!

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Until next time,