Zoo redux

We went to the zoo again! After discussing the commodification of gender via Peggy Orenstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter, which I'm reading now, we glammed Madeline out in her movie-star sunglasses.

Sunglasses gave way to sun-hat when we made it to the zoo. Madeline was much more interested today than she's been in the past. Here she's smiling after having checked out the wildebeest and zebras.

A few minutes and exhibits later, Summer and I were so preoccupied with Madeline that we almost failed to notice a giraffe that had strolled to a corner of its enclosure to visit us -- quite a surprise! We figure that with our baby-blinders on we were probably the least threatening entities in the zoo.

The zoo is designed so folks with low vantage points -- including strollers -- can see some things just as well as we taller folk can. Here she's just been looking into the underwater portion of the harbor seal habitat.

Where she couldn't see from the stroller, sometimes Summer or I would give her a boost. Here, I think, she's checking out the kangaroos.

And sometimes she just didn't want to be in the stroller, so we'd take turns carrying her. Even when she protested, though, she did so about as politely as a pre-verbal baby's able to do.

She stayed awake -- and good-tempered -- the entire trip! Until we made it out to the parking lot at the end of the day, that is, at which point she fell asleep. Exhausted, no doubt.