Day 198 - Animal Fun

Today's first time parenting tip - Take your baby to the zoo for a fest of the senses

Today we took our baby to the zoo for the first time. Since he's been noticing the dog, the cat and people a lot more, we knew that all the stuff going on at the zoo would be great for him. We did run into a few kinks, and there are ways to make sure you mazimize your zoo experience.

• Make noises, say the names of the animals, and look at the pictures of animals on the exhibit placards. Our son loved the pictures of the monkeys, more than the big brown lumps of fur laying around


• Go when its cooler out. We went in the afternoon, so a lot of the animals were being lazy and just laying around


• Pay attention to what interests your baby. We decided to skip the amphibians, birds, insects and such because we figured he'd like the big animals he could see moving. Turns out he was fascinated with the birds hopping all over the place.


• Don't be afraid to double back. Our son was napping during an exhibit he would have loved, the underwater tunnel in the arctic circle exhibit. Between the sun throwing bright blue water patterns on the wall and the seals swimming overhead, he would have been in awe. The zoo closed soon after we went through, but if we had time I would have loved to double back and take him trough it.
  

Parenting, Fun, Field, Trip, Zoo