Rocks or Zoos?

I took Toby to the zoo this week. Without Rob. It was a total of 1h45 min driving for 1h30min of zoo time. Plus the rushed 30min in the morning to get him sunscreened, dressed, fed and packed and his lunch prepped for the car ride home. The zoo itself was a hit - -I spent the time racing after him as he ran from animal to animal and then attempted to get himself rammed by the goats in the petting zoo. I tried over and over to teach him the word goat but he was too busy to catch on. I was very glad be joined by my friend Lindsay and her two boys. We then had 3 pairs of eager feet to catch and the added enthusiasm for pony rides and the playground. (They had been there before…) Wowzers. It was a fun but BUSY morning.

That afternoon, still recuperating from the morning outing, Rob and I decided to take a last minute drive to Maxwell Landscaping to pick up some slate rocks for our back patio.

And I thought the ZOO was a hit.

Toby was in HEAVEN. He emerged out of the car to a vast landscape of rocks, concrete, stones, cement and gravel in varying size piles with the odd truck and backhoe to boot. AND, in case you think it couldn’t get any better, it does. This whole blissful acreage faced GREY ROAD 4. And you know what’s on GREY ROAD 4…..

Trucks.

And Cars.

Toby was so excited he couldn’t get his feet to go at first. He stood on the spot raising his feet in the air in alternate succession as his little boy brain plotted which pile of stone he would head for first.

He spent the next 30 minutes racing between piles of stone and banging on the tops of the ones he could reach. He challenged himself to carry as MANY rocks as he could without toppling over. His feet only ever stopped to point out and admire the passing trucks and his exuberant smile only faded briefly to question the beeping of the reversing backhoe that caught his attention. He fell numerous times and even took the skin off one of his fingers but that even that didn’t slow him down. My child is a boy to the BONE.

After DRAGGING him away from the site to go inside and pay for our slate, I started to contemplate WHY I had spent my day off getting up early, packing, driving for hours and chasing him around the zoo when I could have enjoyed my morning coffee and leisurely made my way 5 minutes down the road to take him to his ULTIMATE fantasy park – the rock landscaping place in the sprawling metropolis of Maxwell.

But my daydream was cut short by my son’s voice. As he pointed earnestly to the salesman he triumphantly announced, “GOAT!”

….Turns out we ALL learned something that day….