Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Taking my sons to the zoo - never too old!

Going to the zoo is something I do regularly, being a member of Friends of the Zoo, but today I had the pleasant surprise of having my sons kindly accept my invitation to accompany me. They are of the age where it's not the coolest thing to go to the zoo, especially with your mother, but we enjoyed each other's company while watching the antics of the young orangutan and admiring the beauty of the various felines.

There were many young families there, the day being sunny and not too wintery. I was pleased that I didn't see what I've seen all too often during past visits: mothers talking constantly on their mobile phones and ignoring their children, not watching children's reactions to the animals, answering their questions or interacting with them. This is prime quality time with children, and what an opportunity is lost when a parent's eyes are glazed over as she talks with friends or intently reads the oh-so-important text messages coming through.

OK, Blogger working now...












Those pelicans are quite large when up close! They were a bit aggressive too.
The young orangutan put on a great show. The older one can be seen in the background hiding under a light blue skirt.

There are the boys looking at the young orangutan which got a round of applause when it reached the top of the pole.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why DO mothers in todays age ignore their children?? If you can't appreciate and interact with your children why have any?
I haven't been to the Zoo in years..great that your Boys still want to be seen in public with their Mum. I think it is a credit to you

Val said...

You have a note right now on your blog, about Blogger not playing ball with uploading images.

Here is a phrase from an interview with Google boss, followed by comment from Phil Bradley on his "Phil Bradley's weblog"

"The way you find really successful new innovation is to release five things and hope that one or two of them really take off."

The comment in reply "What about people who invest time, effort and money in using a Google product, only to find out down the line that it's not one of the phenomenally popular ones? Is Google just going to dump them by turning off the application one day, or get the user to dump them by not upgrading the product or improving it - and can we say 'Blogger.com' here?"

Susie said...

I actually went to the Zoo with my grown children until they had children of their own. Then we went as three generations! What an amazing experience that was! Our favorite zoo in CA is the San Diego Zoo. Have you ever been there?

Val said...

My husband and I went to the San Diego Zoo in the early 70s, it was a wonderful experience to see the animals in such large, natural looking enclosures. However, hubby accidentally irritated a large gorilla: as he was running to get in a better position to photograph the gorilla, his motorcycle boots made a rather loud noise. The gorilla picked up, well, a piece of poo and threw it at him. Fortunately it didn't reach over the moat, although I did have some sympathy for the gorilla, and this story is now a family story - the boys brought it up yesterday when we were looking at the gorillas.

Oh no, I don't even want to think about Blogger pulling the plug. I personally would pay for this service, but I'd like to get some warning that the situation would be changed.

Meow (aka Connie) said...

I just looooove going to the zoo, and the Melbourne Zoo is quite spectacular. I haven't seen the new elephant exhibit yet, but I've heard it is wonderful. Always loved the monkeys, gorillas, etc ... too cheeky, so funny !!
I hope Blogger doesn't pull the plug ... do you think they would ???
Take care, Meow

Val said...

You're in for a treat, Meow, the elephant trail is fantastic, and they're adding even more to it to accommodate the breeding elephants, whenever that will be. Also, the new monkey enclosure is coming along too. There are always so many changes, that even though I visit quite frequently, there's always something new.

Let's keep our fingers crossed about Blogger.

John Cowart said...

week befor last, ginny & I went to the zoo; we noticed that same thing about cell phones. People walked around ignoring animals, gardens and eachother to telk with someone more important who was not there.

That looked so weird to us.

We like to be where we are and with who we're with.

Val said...

John,
and the zoo is not the only place people are ignoring their surroundings due to too much phoning and texting. I'm encouraged though by more people starting to notice this, but will it get through to young people who have never known anything else?

Mimi,
ditto about going in the colder months and having the place to ourselves! This method works well for beaches too. No swimming of course, but there's something so refreshing about the beach in winter (although I must say that winter here is pretty mild).

Kerri said...

How lovely Val..a day at the zoo with your boys! I'm glad they said yes to your invitation. It's fun to spend time with your young adult children. Our youngest, Kathy, is coming for a visit today. We love to have her come so we can do some catching up! She's moving to NY City soon.
We visited the San Diego Zoo back in 1979. What a great place!
Our Syracuse Zoo has a new penguin exhibit. Love those penguins!