charlobo-a-go-go

I went to Border’s with Bambina the other day, and while watching her play with Thomas and the Tank engine table at the back of the kids section by herself, I mused over her singletoness. As an only child, she plays quietly by herself and yells only in the company of the familiar. It was a bittersweet moment because I would love to see her throw down with a sibling, to chatter with another little voice, but those things all come in time, I hope.

I saw earlier a woman in a niqab around the store. She and I made eye contact and said hello to each other. I saw her with her husband soon after, and then came rushing to the table their three daughters. They reached around and grabbed the trains and started playing with them as kids are apt to do. Bambina stepped back and watched them take the train she was playing with. She made do with a sign and Mr. Toppenhat. The mom waved hello at Bambina and kid that she is waved back. The mom walked up to Bambina and handed her something, and I watched them interact. I wasn’t being nervous, but I was happy enough that she offered something to my child.

Meanwhile, the three girls were runnin’ thangs at the table, and Bambina contented herself to eating chips I bought earlier as she sat next to me. The mom chided her girls to share with Bambina. She’s so quiet, I thought to myself, I hope she doesn’t raise a fuss. She didn’t. God bless that child. I walked up to the table and found a train that wasn’t used and passed it to her. She went to the table and played quietly with her train.

Soon, moms takes her girls away. I took the gum from Bambina so she wouldn’t presumably lose it or try to eat it with the paper on. Later I looked at it over dinner, and it was from Saudi Arabia. Not opening it, I smelled it and it was so heavily perfumed, sweet and heavy. From the moms or the gum, I have no idea.

So today I made an executive decision to head to the SF Zoo to show Bambina that all those wacky animals in her books actually exist.

I unfortch am on another computer and don’t have the pics from the trip on this one (I know, life is hard with multiple macs and don’t be tellin’ me that I need to network them together. BLAH). First off, sad of sadnesses, Bambina is howling that we’re going out, and she’s all about it. I pack a bag with lunch, drinks and water, and decide that I’m going to carry her through the zoo (no stroller, so I don’t have to pick up her to show her the poo-throwing monkeys and she’ll be pretty much near eye level to me). I load her into the car, and aw crap, I left my phone upstairs. I unbuckle her and she starts bawling, like “bad trick mommy, you tricked me! you suck.” Yes, I felt that way, and sheesh I brought her upstairs with me and back down in 2 seconds flat. Load her up, and we’re on our way.

After a quick trip to the drive up ATM (woot, Brisbane), we make our way to the Zoo. It’s about 10:30, and the zoo just cracked open. Images of throngs of children fill my head. Pink popcorn. Poo throwing monkeys. You see, I love the zoo. My parents, bro and I would make annual trips out, and I was always in love with the place. The sounds of the howler monkeys. The roar of the lions. The smell of the elephants (more on that later). The gorillas. This is kid Char heaven, yo. So it makes perfect sense for me to lug Bambina out the door on a somewhat chilly yet sunny day to see the Zoo.

I get there and am a little aghast because, um, there’s parking. Is it closed? Did I indeed play a bad mommy trick on Bambina? No, it’s open, people are walking up. Do I pay for parking? Because I’m ready to carry her through the zoo, I want to park right up against the gate, and eerily enough, I am about 15 feet from the front door. The parking lot is pretty empty.

I laugh to myself because there are obvious tourists here. How obvious? Wearing light jackets. Shorts. Bad haircuts. It was cute tho to see them shiver and put on another layer while Bambina and I cruised up to buy our tix. 15 bucks for me. 8 bucks for parking. She’s free.99.

Present my ticket, get a pic taken of us (that I never pick up, oh well), and head right off to the giraffes. Now before you think I am going to go play by play on you, I won’t. I’ll just say this: babies in carrier with full bags of food are FKN heavy. But I sure did carry her most of the way. I let her cruise around where the penguins and lions were, but that’s pretty much it. Like I said, the zoo was empty enough that it felt like we could have just been there by ourselves. The only other kids that were there were school groups, and I think I can say with certainty there were only three other groups. Oh and the tourists who were freezing.

There are no elephants there, and Bambina is all about the elephants. It’s pretty understandable though, because there was no love for the pachyderms. So she saw a tapir and we called it a day. The zoo still held that fascination for me that it always had. I remembered places and walkthroughs from my childhood, and felt my heart swell with the merry go round, but I was already exhausted enough and was racing for the exit.

I took pictures mostly so we can look at them together and she can recall the animals. I took some of her, but as usual, none of me. So I sort of regret not getting the group pic we took at the entry, but that’s life.

Mild sunburn on my lip. Nice. Bambina cheeks sun pinked. Eating oranges in the sun talking about the penguins, the cranes, and the owls. I hope that when she grows up she’ll remember the zoo as a happy place to see the animals in her books.

The best part of it was looking at the pictures afterward with her and Husbandido, and she recalled most of the animals and was chatty as a sub-2 year old can be. I will probably feel the muscles hating on me in the morning, but it was well worth it.

Charlene

PS: the title? sometimes when i see words, i’ll add up the point value in scrabble. yah i know. weird.