Nature up close

The boys and I have been to the Zoo a couple of times this week and it has been a real success. We used to go a lot but they seemed to have gotten a little bored of it, so it was nice that they were really into it again. We've been spending a lot of time at the reptile house, as the boys are into snakes these days. They also like the little frog displays because they can play find the frogs (Jamie finds more inevitably and Connor gets impatient). Today was rather intense since and we got there as they were feeding the black-headed python. We got to see it eat two mice whole, which is quite a thing. I wondered how the boys would react to this but they were very interested and not the lease bit disturbed. Jamie did feel a little sad for the mouse. But he offered a very pertinent fact to the group gathered around ("Some larger pythons can eat a whole deer!") and asked the zoo keeper relevant questions about the mice (turns out they get them frozen).

Then we went outside to have some snacks. Connor wanted to sit and watch the ducks so we found a shady spot and they turned their chairs around to face the lake and happily munched away on pretzels and goldfish. As we were walking towards the elephants Connor spotted a centipede on the ground. Jamie was immediately concerned that the little fellow would get stepped on so he plucked it right up and put it in his palm. A bond quickly formed. He giggled delightedly as the centipede crawled over his hand and up his arm, that unaffected bubbling laugh that is one of the best sounds in the world. He held onto to the little guy for the rest of our time there. When eventually we had to leave (it was 11:15 and we were going to expire from the heat), we agreed it was best to put the centipede on a nice bush. Jamie duly did so, and then turned around and hugged me, crying a little. He really liked that little guy.