The New Zoo

First and foremost, thank you for all your precious comments on my last post. It is such a blessing to be encouraged and supported in prayer.

Today Park and I ventured out for a little grocery shopping. We were in no rush to get anywhere, so we decided that we might as well make an adventure of it. (Truthfully, grocery shopping with small children is always an adventure anyway, right?) Upon Park's suggestion, we decided to pretend our outing to Wal-Mart was actually a trip to the zoo.

And based on how crowded it was on a random Wednesday morning, it really wasn't all that much of a stretch.

Our first stop was produce, and it was in this department that Park determined that we must eat some ice cream if we were going to enjoy our zoo experience. Just as I was about to shoot down that idea, I turned and saw what he was using as a makeshift cone.

"Yummy to my tummy!" he exclaimed, " This broccoli ice cream cone is DELICIOUS. And it makes me super strong!"

Broccoli crowns as ice cream cones? Knock yourself out, buddy. And to think of all the times I've stressed over getting him to eat his vegetables when it turns out all I needed to do was take him to the "zoo"?

A few minutes later we encountered our first zoo animals:


"WOW, MOMMY!" he shouted, "They don't even have lobsters at the real zoo. This is the coolest zoo I've ever seen!"

Yes, baby. And let's look at them quickly before the lady behind us purchases a handful. Praise the Lord she was gracious enough to wait until we were out of sight so I didn't have to explain why the zoo pets are being cooked for dinner.

After moving to the bread aisle, we encountered two small children in the throws of screaming tantrums over a mutual desire to push their mommy's cart. (Not unlike the fit an unnamed child, who may or may not belong to me, threw at the check-out last week, I might add.)

While I did my best to avert my eyes in order to give the frazzled mother the opportunity to preserve some dignity, Park on the other hand was tickled pink to point and squeal loudly. "Looks like we found the monkeys!!!" He proceeded to place his hands in his underarms, while dancing around and making loud OOH-OOH-OOH monkey noises.

So much for preserving the dignity of either mommy.

Finishing up with the groceries, we made our way to the aquarium portion of the "zoo". He was delighted to see the little fish swimming around, although I'm pretty sure they were really happy to see us leave after he banged on their tank to see "the little fishies swim all fast." I had flash backs to Finding Nemo when the dentist's niece came in for a visit.


After checking out and making our way back to the car, Park said, "That was really fun, Mommy, but I'm so sad we didn't see an elephant."

"Maybe next time, sweet P, " I said, "but for now let's get these groceries into the trunk."

A huge smile lit up his precious face and I heard him saying, "Our car has a trunk!"

I was a bit confused and distracted, so I just mumbled, "Yup." Unsatisfied, he pulled at my leg and said, "MOMMY! Our car has a trunk? Our car has a trunk? Our car is an ELEPHANT! This is the BEST ZOO IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!"

Perhaps Wal-Mart should change their marketing strategy.