Over this past weekend (Thurs-Tues), my in-laws were able to come visit. It was so wonderful to see them and for them to be able to spend time with Luke. They hadn't seen him since Christmas, and he's definitely changed a lot in the four months in between! Their trip was over too quickly. It seemed like they had just gotten here when it was time for them to leave. But we did have a great visit and got to do some fun things while they were here.
One of those things was a trip to the Indianapolis Zoo. Although there is a small zoo in a park near where we live that we have taken Luke to a couple of times, I had really been looking forward to his first big zoo visit. We timed our drive to Indianapolis to correspond with his usual morning nap time and he did indeed sleep nearly the whole way there. We had him in the jogging stroller and it was really easy to get around the zoo that way. The biggest negative was that leaving him in the stroller meant that mostly his views were of the fence around each exhibit, so there was a lot of unbuckling and rebuckling that took place.
I'm not sure how much of the animals he actually really saw. I think that when they were moving, they caught his attention a bit more. The best part were the aquatic animals. When we went into the dolphin area, he was able to see the dolphins swimming by. And looking at the other aquariums inside the Oceans area was also a lot better for him. Unfortunately, we waited until the end before we were in that area, so he was a bit tired out by that point. But I think he did quite enjoy those animals.
There was only one negative experience. I could tell (as it was approaching lunchtime) that Luke was getting a little tired and probably hungry. We were at the Desert area. This area is a giant dome that lets in sunlight and heats up quite well for the animals inside. And heats up the people inside as well. I think that the addition of the extra heat at that point was the last straw and Luke got upset. We rushed out of the Desert area (completely missing the exit the first time so making a circuit that we didn't need to make and prolonging our time inside. Oops!) and looking for a place to sit down so I could nurse Luke. There was a cafeteria place with some indoor seating, so we went inside and made our way to a back table (here, the jogging stroller was not very convenient!). I started nursing Luke who eventually calmed down enough to nurse. He was doing a lot better after that, which is when we went to the Oceans area. So I think we'll skip the Desert area for a while until Luke is a bit older.
We took a look through the gift shop on our way out and got Luke a Indianapolis Zoo onesie (J really wanted the one with a tiger on it) as well as a small stuffed tiger. Since we knew that we were going to be going to the zoo a few times this summer, we bought a family membership and a small discount at the gift shop is included, which was nice.
Then we got back into the car and headed to a restaurant for lunch. It was a little way to drive to get there and Luke fell asleep almost immediately. And he slept hard on that drive to the restaurant. We ate and I fed Luke his lunch and he was happy and awake during the whole drive back home. So although there was one little blip, all in all it was a fun day.
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