Zoo!

Ezra is in love with animals.  He takes a particular fancy in lions, owls, and giraffes.  We look at animal books constantly.  He is quick to point out the obscure animal in the corner of the illustration that has nothing to do with the plot line--like the mouse under the chair or the butterfly on the leaf.  Husband and I recently decided to nurture his fancy and get a zoo membership.  We are currently quite close to downtown; I can get from the house to the front door of the zoo in an easy 25 minutes.  Today the weather was perfect, so we took our first adventure.

As we prepared to leave for the zoo this morning, Ezra was excitedly calling out (repeatedly) "an-mul" (animal), "zoo", and then proceeded to rattle off as many animals as he could think of:
 "Zebra?"
"Yes, we will see zebras."
"Lion?"
"Yes, lions live at the zoo, too."
"Bear?"
"Bears, yes, we will see bears."
"Jaff?"
"Yes, many giraffes live at the zoo."

(You get the idea.)  Ezra included dinosaur in that list, as well.

The little guy could hardly contain himself.  When we arrived, he shrieked with joy.

The lion display sits just inside the front entrance, and, lucky for us, the two lion cubs were up and active.  A solid piece of display glass was all that separated us and the noses of the lions.  Ezra was happy as a clam.

We also saw our zebras, bears, and giraffes--along with a whole bucket of others common and those more obscure.  Ezra giggled at a pair of honky geese, tried to mimic some monkey calls, growled at the cheetah, and had compassion for all the sleepy animals.  "Ni-night,"  he cooed to the daddy lions who were always sleeping.

We ate lunch by the train station, and Ezra thrilled every time the familiar "choo-chooooo" call came circling around again.  Five minutes into our return trip Ezra conked out, very content.