Wild Kingdom

We vacated West Lafayette on Friday to spend the afternoon at the Indy Zoo. It was perfect. The weather was gorgeous and we arrived just as the student groups were departing. Sydney was perfect too, despite no naps that day.



Applying sunscreen on Sydney.


"Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" Actually, the creature in the background is a Kodiak bear. Just about every animal exhibit prompted one of us to recite a phrase from one of Sydney's books. Unfortunately, we did not see any "Hippos go Berserk." Obviously, Brian and I are a real thrill to chill with nowadays.

Above is my attempt at playing family photog. Me, not so good. Brian is the talent in the family.



What a busy day at the zoo. While I was buying this lemon freeze, Brian and Sydney watched some lemurs and ducks tussle. We also rode the train. Sydney did awesome considering she skipped her morning nap, then we were at the zoo when she normally would have taken her afternoon nap. Sydney kept her requests for puppies to a minimum, but she did call the yak and elephant 'puppies.'



After the zoo, we stayed at the 5-star Peelle estate. We were well-fed (homemade fried chicken and Cheesecake Factory super chocolate cheesecake) and well cared for.

After dinner, we rested on their porch.


Sydney and Aunt Jackie.


Sydney deep in thought.


Sydney calling her people.


The lack of sleep started catching up with Sydney. Fast forward a couple hours later, and Sydney would crawl into the same position and say 'sleep.' Poor thing. She fell asleep in my lap, while Brian, my sisters and brother-in-law chatted. It's been a long time (at least a few months) since Sydney has fallen asleep in my lap. Precious.

Maybe our conversation was boring her: dream vacations, the first cassette tape we bought (or CD in Jackie's case) and what reality TV show we would want to star in. It was a great visit.


The plan was to run a couple errands, then hike around Eagle Creek Park on Saturday. We made it to aisle 2 of Trader Joe's when the lack of sleep (missing 3 naps and a rough night of sleep) finally caught up to Sydney. She erupted. (Sorry Dad, no porto for you, no wine for me. We never made it very far.) We headed to the park, but detoured back to West Lafayette when the kid finally conked out. She was a trooper.

We even experienced the remnants of her sleep deprivation today. We were sympathetic.

She rarely fusses and is usually agreeable, but she was so whiny, whiny today.

But, she made me laugh. I was trying to put on her shoes and coat so we could play outside, but she didn't want to go and she threw herself in the floor and cried. I've never seen her not want to go outside. The funny part: she's laying in the floor crying so hard and repeating "happy, happy, happy." I don't think she meant happy. I'll need to correct her before her next tantrum.