The zoo

The title of this post is both literal and metaphoric. Life with small children can often be likened to a zoo--noisy, chaotic and a little smelly (especially in the diaper stage) but fascinating, none the less. Last Wednesday, we had a t-storm come through town and knock out the power. Lucky for us, our power was restored within a few hours. But the next day, power was still out across parts of town, including on the campus where I work. So I got a free day off! Since we were already up and ready to greet the day, we decided to drive to the Little Rock Zoo for some fun without the weekend crowds. It was hot, so we stayed through late morning and then headed over to All Aboard for lunch--a restaurant in L.R. that has a small train running around the top of the seating area. When your food is ready, the train delivers it to your table :-) I snapped a few pictures with the camera of Jacob since this was his first zoo visit. He seemed to enjoy the animals, when they weren't hiding in the shade to escape the heat. We know that he already can identify many animals since he can point to a lot of them in his seek-and-find book. I'm not sure he made the connection that these were the real thing, though. Maybe in a couple years.

The locusts are in full force here in AR and both boys insist on hunting for locust "shells" in the yard. They are amassing quite a collection in  a beach bucket in the backyard. Saturday morning we played  "baseball" in the empty parking lot behind our house, at Micah's request. Micah is getting really good at hitting and throwing and just really enjoys this game. Jacob and I played outfield, while Daddy pitched. I think we may have a future little leaguer on our hands.

Micah and Daddy have been enjoying their time together, working on small projects around the house, putting together monster truck models, watching movies and coming up with new "tricks" --that's what Micah likes to call his gymnastic efforts on the couch cushions in the bedroom. It was, in fact, just one of these tricks that landed us in the ER last night, for Jacob. Micah was attempting to help Jacob experience the fun that is "tricks" done from the top of the cushion, and he was pulling Jacob's arms to haul him on top of the bed when Jacob began to cry and hold his arm. Having been down this road before , we knew it was nursemaid's elbow (small dislocation of the elbow) and would require a doctor to make things right. It wasn't hurting him unless he attempted to move it from its bent position, so Dan carried him out to the car and we all drove to the ER (we don't have an urgent care center for after-clinic accidents in Arkadelphia). A few minutes later, we were driving back home with a happy boy singing in the backseat, will full range of motion and no pain. Dan and I have agreed that from now on we just need to budget for one ER visit per year per boy. Of course in mommy fashion, I woke up numerous times last night with nightmares about horrible things happening to Jacob! Sigh. Even though I know he was fine, I was grateful to wake up to find a smiling child this morning.

Tomorrow we are going to L.R. for Jacob's appt. with the pediatric allergy specialist. He will have a skin test to help us determine what he's allergic to. We are really hoping that this will help us alleviate some of the asthma, ezcema issues he has had over this year.

Hope everyone has a good week!