Eden's first trip to the zoo!

Since we didn't have any family coming into town for Eden's first birthday, we wanted to do something special with her. Now, I realize that she doesn't have any idea what a zoo is or that it was her birthday (or what a birthday is, for that matter). But most of us have pictures of our first birthday on which to look back! When I look at mine, I see pictures of a one-year-old me surrounded by family and friends. Since we live on a different continent than our family and friends (except you, Katherine!) Eden won't have those pictures - so we figured she should have some pictures of a zoo trip. Okay, it wasn't actually that complex...we just thought it would be fun to take her to the zoo for her birthday.

It was, indeed, so much fun. Even though I have grown ambivalent about the rightness/wrongness of zoos, I could not help myself from feeling the same giddiness I felt during my many zoo trips as a child when we walked through the entrance. When I was young, I would use up multiple rolls of film during zoo trips, and then fill entire photo albums with dark and distant photos of all the animals. I just loved getting to be so close to so many different creatures! My grandparents would buy me subscriptions to magazines like "Zoo News" for years, which fed my obsession.

I was excited to share this (former) obsession with my child, and it was a very neat experience. Eden is only one, so certainly had limited understanding of what was going on, but she was as fascinated by the animals as I had hoped. She pointed at each one we saw, calling all of them "dog." She only got scared once: when Andrew set her right outside the cage of some raccoon/monkey looking creature. We even got to feed a carrot to a giraffe, which I never recall getting to do in U.S. zoos. Anyway, it was a great birthday, and it wasn't even mine!

Before the dolphin show


Dolphins


Eden was very interested