For the past two weeks, it has been a daily ritual for the Toddler to try to con us into taking her to the Zoo. I do believe she would be perfectly content LIVING there, and she has tried every trick in her book to get us to go as often as possible. We've had her slip the sentence, "We go eat French fries AFTER we go to the Zoo," in just to see if we would notice that she was scheduling our day. She has tried convincing the dogs that they want to go to the Zoo in hopes that her little army could join forces and convince the adults in the house to load up the car and take the critters to see some critters. She has tried yelling, "PLEASE!" in a tone of voice that would be better suited for telling a prisoner to stop scaling the prison wall. Today was finally her lucky day (BTW, she's been there four times so far this year. Don't let her try to convince you she's deprived.)

It was a PERFECT day for the Zoo in that it was probably 90 degrees outside. There is no sarcasm to be found in that sentence; hot weather drives away the weak. It rocked to be there when it wasn't terribly busy. It also helped that we went later in the afternoon when the animals are far more active. We actually heard one kid gleefully scream, "LOOOOOOK! The Snow Leopard IS alive! It's actually moving!" The kid had a point there. The Snow Leopard is the first animal you see when you go in and it's ALWAYS sleeping. Except at 3:00 when it starts pacing and hanging out right next to the glass as it waits for it's meal.

Also pacing and hanging out right next to the glass were the tigers.

(I left the kid's head in this photo on purpose so you could see that the tiger really was inches away from us. SOOO Cool!)

While it was fun to see the tigers up REALLY close and to actually see them playing, it was the baby elephant that stole the show. This is Angelina and the other female elephants at the Pittsburgh Zoo. Angelina was born July 10th and I believe is Jackson's 7th kid.

(I don't know why I giggle at these photos of the headless Zookeeper, but I do. Pretend that's not weird, mmkay?)

Apparently it was the day for seeing animals up close through glass, because while we were hanging out in the monkey house, this guy came up for a visit:

And that is when I was reminded that my daughter is a wuss. A BIG wuss. The wussiest wuss that ever did wuss. Mr. Husband was holding her and thought he would be a kind, caring parent and show his animal-loving daughter the monkey-type thing up close.

She flipped out.

She yelled at him to, "Back up, Daddy!" over and over until he finally did. But the wuss didn't end there. Oh, no it didn't. After the monkey house we ventured to the little eating area for our customary fresh cut French fries fix. As we were sitting there fighting over the crispy ones, a peacock wandered into the area.

(Now, I would have some seriously incredible photos of that peacock if it weren't for one little thing: I am The Queen of Forgetting to Pack the Extra Camera Battery. I'm expecting my crown in the mail any day now because that is the THIRD time I've left for the Zoo with a nearly dead battery and no back-up. Don't you wish you were as talented as me?)

Anyway, we were happily eating French fries when the peacock wandered into the area. And headed straight for us. Right when the peacock moved close enough for Alexis to kick him, she noticed him.

And freaked the f*@& out. That? Is an understatement--there is no adjective that would accurately describe the level of freak that went on. Think about how badly you would freak out if Michael Jackson were to walk up to you, lick your face, then pull his nose off and shove it in your mouth. Now double it. She freaked out MORE than that. I picked the Toddler up to calm her down and then we all enjoyed twenty more minutes of trying to eat French fries and ice cream while the kid flipped her lid because a silly bird was in the same time zone as her.

The kid is scared of the peacock. A lot scared.

Mr. Husband, being the outstanding guy that he is, loves to exploit weaknesses. For example, he knows I hate to be called a common nickname derived from my first name. HATE IT. WILL STAB YOU IN THE FACE WITH A PITCHFORK FOR SAYING IT. So what does he do when he wants to irritate me? Calls me that name over and over and over and over. What did he do once he found out Alexis was scared of a very friendly (and GORGEOUS) peacock? He kept saying, "Look! There's the peacock!" and singing a lovely rendition of, "The Peacock is Coming to Take You Away." The Toddler was not amused.

This story brought to you by those who would like everyone to remember that I am not in fact the mean one in this house. Although, I do totally plan to yell, "Hey look, a peacock!" the next time Alexis tries to steal ice cream from me.