A Splashing Great Fourth!

For the Fourth of July, Daddy had to work all day, so Uncle Kelly and I decided we would take the children on an outing.  We couldn't decide if we should do the petting zoo, which they've really enjoyed their last two visits, or the playground, which they always love.  I have a bunch of cool new sand toys to try out, and the playground is less than 5 minutes from the zoo, so we figured if they woke up from their naps in time, we'd do both.

They must've known that was the deal, because when I put them down for their nap, they stayed in bed chatting for about an hour and a half, then snoozed for about an hour and were up and ready to go at 2:15.  I tried to give them lunch, but they were eager to get dressed and GO!

Because it was a bit chilly, I put everyone in jeans - the first time for Caroline!  Her little legs are so stubby I had to roll up the cuffs two times!  She wore a pretty blue flowered blouse and the boys each had a long sleeved shirt.  They looked so grown up!

We drove out to the zoo and found a spot on the street - score!  No parking fee and free entry with our zoo membership (that thing paid for itself about 11 months ago!)  Once inside we made a "B" line (bee line?) for the petting zoo.  We were in luck that it was feeding time for the ducks and they were passing out free duck feed to anyone who wanted to toss it in the pond.

Uncle Kelly took Max and Caroline over to feed some ducks, while Daniel became fascinated with the gate as people came in and out.

Doesn't that outfit look adorable? Even from the back

"So you see, Max, this is a petting zoo, but you can't pet the ducks"

"Ooh! the gate is OPEN!"

Once everyone got the hang of feeding the ducks, they seemed to have a really good time.  One even almost ate right out of Caroline's hand!

Notice it is Daniel who is leaning forward to put his hand in the water.

In the bottom right corner, that is a goat butt.  That goat was very friendly.

Max got distracted a few times by the pigeons and more than once we had to scan the yard for his green shirt chasing after a little flock of birds.  Daniel kept kneeling down to feel the water.  Meanwhile, Caroline enjoyed when the goats came up behind her.  She reached up and nervously pet their scratchy hair, pulling her hand back and giggling as she squealed, "ouchy!"  The boys seemed relatively oblivious to the goats.  So I dug through my purse to get quarters so we could buy goat and sheep food and get them to eat out of Caroline's hand, which she really liked last time we visited.

I was having trouble getting the quarter into the slot on the machine and Uncle Kelly turned to ask me if I needed help.  In that split second, Caroline decided that she was bored standing on dry land.  Just over her uncle's shoulder I saw, seemingly in slow motion, as she carefully kneeled down at the edge of the pond, turned to her side and reached into the pond with her left foot, then her right, and started to stand up.  All I could think of was her wet feet and I yelled, "Caroline! NO!"  Uncle Kelly then spun around, saw her, and bounded toward her, startling her so that she sat down in the four-inch high water and made a big splash.  He walked right into the pond and scooped her up, but not before she drenched every bit of clothing she was wearing.

And I realized that I didn't have a change of clothes for her.

I always think to myself that I should remember to pack a change of clothes in the diaper bag, but I never get around to it, and the kids aren't really that messy or prone to diaper blow-outs, so I've been lucky.  Until now.

I took her from her uncle, soaking my own shirt, and decided at least I would take her and take off her wet shirt.  I knew I'd grabbed her pretty pink jacket from the car.  Once she was back at the stroller and out of the wet shirt, I dug around in the diaper bag and found 1 diaper cover, 1 boys' jumper, and 1 pair of girl pants - both articles of clothing were size 9 MONTHS.  But it was worth a shot.  I peeled off the dripping jeans and her squishy socks, replaced her diaper cover, which had actually preserved her diaper, and slipped the pants on her.  Keep in mind that she is now 21 months old.  These pants should be more than a year too small for her.

You can hardly tell!  They're a little too short, and when she sat down, they turned into capris, but they worked.  I put her wet shoes back on so she could run around the petting zoo a little more.  Her brothers had decided their favorite thing about the zoo was the buckets of water they leave around to keep the animals hydrated.  Needless to say, we sanitized everyone's hands when we left!  And then it was back in the stroller and we pulled the wet shoes off, rubbed her feet down with a cloth, and let her ride barefoot as we left.

I stopped at the zoo store and bought her a shirt (and got one for each of her brothers, too, so they wouldn't feel like she got special treatment for breaking the rules) and we changed her into a pair of shoes I had in the trunk which are too big still and we moved on to the playground, which was deserted.

At the playground, each of the kids decided to go down one of the "big kids" slides - Caroline wanted to go down all three of them!  One was a twisty slide, so Uncle Kelly went down behind her to make sure she didn't stop part way and fall over the side, or just get scared.  Later on, she wanted to go down a twisty slide that also has a tunnel over it (so that it's enclosed on top), which meant he couldn't fit to go down behind her.  So he went down on his belly.  Head first.  I had visions of having to call the fire department out to cut him out of the play structure, but it all worked out.

There was another family at the playground who had planned to go to the zoo, but woke up from nap time too late.  As we were corralling everyone to leave, the dad said, "Wait a minute - how far apart are your kids?" This was the fourth or fifth comment we'd gotten in the course of a few hours.  A man on the sidewalk smiled at us and said, "You have a lovely family - congratulations."  A woman a half a block later gave us the standard "hands full" comment.  A boy at the entrance to the children's zoo looked at us, turned to his mom and asked, "Could you imagine having THREE babies like THAT?"  She just said, "No.  Or three like YOU!"  A few asked if the boys were twins, only to be told they were triplets and say some variation of "wow".

So, all in all an exciting day that turned out pretty well.