It's All Happening at the Zoo

Just grin and bear it.

There are some things best seen through the eyes of a child. Christmas morning. Disney World. And zoos of any type or size.

Today, on a weather-perfect November Sunday, we visited the National Zoo with our grandchildren Audrey, 5 weeks short of 4, and Owen, who is 2 and 1/2.

While the National Zoo has hundreds of animals, it is probably best known for its giant pandas, fixtures there since President Richard Nixon normalized relations with China in the early 1970s. In fact, the zoo has become one of the world's leading research institutions on pandas.

Given Grandmom's great love of all things monkey and ape, we spent time in every enclosure housing our nearest relatives on the circle of life. We saw a great silver back male gorilla lope and strut as he eyed an infant tentatively practice chest-thumping before losing his balance and tumbling down a hill. And we joined a large crowd to watch an orangutan balance across an O-line about 50 feet in the air as he headed from The Think Tank area (where apes work on computers) across a large section of the zoo back to his habitat.

Sipping and seeing animals on a Sunday afternoon

Of course, when your main traveling companions are 4 and 2, there are a lot of activities in addition to animal watching. There are juice boxes to sip and bags of goldfish to devour. There are rocks to climb and sculptures just perfect for hanging on. There are painted elephant steps on walkways to follow, as well as leaves to pick up and use as tickle feathers.

In the end, when it came to rating the day, Audrey gave her biggest thumbs up to the zebras, her favorites of the animal kingdom. For grandmom, it was the soaring orangutan. And for Owen, I think it was the tickle leaf, with a climbing rock a close second.


Tales, Tidbits, and Traveling Tips
You don't have to be a card-carrying member of PETA to appreciate the close connections we share with animals. When we weren't visiting zoos or creating art projects or playing Peter Pan or reading Disney tales, we were watching multiple showings of Audrey's new favorite old film The Wizard of Oz with its flying monkeys and "tigers, and lions, and bears, oh my." Then there was the book I was reading as soon as we tucked the kids into bed - The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age, which details how scientists are intently studying wildlife around the jungles of the world to find out more about viruses that threaten our survival. And then there is the best of animal behavior itself. A mother lioness guarding her cub. Or a chimpanzee appearing to be hugging its partner as it picks lice off of his back. Of course, just like there are expected animal behaviors, there are specific natural laws for grandparents and their grandchildren.  While there are many variations, those rules basically center around the time-honored concept of spoiling. When we arrived at the Zoo, Audrey and Owen's mother established a simple rule: the kids could ride in the double-stroller or walk, but there was to be no carrying. About midway during our visit, Audrey and I became separated from the rest of our party. "Carry me, Grandpop," Audrey pleaded. So of course I did. And I was even ready with an excuse if Mom discovered us. "Hey, I bet old orangutans spoil their grandapes by carrying them, too," I rationalized. "It's nature's way."