Zoo day - Horray!!!

It was one of those days when we felt like doing something cool ... and the zoo sounded just like the thing for that day. This was the first time we took the children - I know it is embarrassing, but somehow we always had excuses to just say 'oh, maybe next year' (mostly made up by me). It is just simple ... zoos make me sad. I just can't stomach to have fun and fully enjoy looking at animals that are pulled away from their natural environment and put in a fake one for the enjoyment of humans. I just can't.

So I worked hard on not letting these feelings spoil the day. The kids were super excited and of course talking about the zoo created sweet anticipation in them. When we stepped into the gate, I could already sense that they wanted to spot something 'look mommy, it's a bird'. 'Oh, would you look at that, a sparrow'. I had to fight off smiling, it was so funny that we are standing right front of a huge giraffe and the kids are looking at sparrows. I love them so much!!! They have no idea how much.

The rest of our zoo experience was similar - Vidor was only interested in feeling the water that the penguins were swimming in, but did not even take a second glance at the animals; Lutza kept finding spiders and spider webs, ants and all kinds of bugs just so all three of them can drop on their tummies and watch them crawl away. Forget the animals, the highlight of the day was the carousel ... that just brought smiles and excitement to all of their faces.

And my feelings about the zoo did not change ... a female orangutan put her hand on the inside of the glass where I put mine on the outside. She knew that I knew how she feelt .... she saw tears coming out of my eyes and she signed on her own face to show tears coming of her eyes ... broke my heart.

So zoo visit may be even more painful in the future .... next time I think I will wait until the kids ask to go.

It takes a cul-de-sac

How many babies does it take to fill up a tiny pool??? Four dressed ones and one naked boy (of course he is mine, that Vidor)!!

I don't think I have yelled it out in cyberspace yet how happy I am with our choice of moving into this neighborhood. So here it goes "I LOVE MY NEIGHBORHOOD". I would have never expected this little community to be so warm and welcoming ... and it is even more ... because of all the real people who live in it.

Our small cul-de-sac is fully of lively and happy kids. We never feel alone or bored here ... we can just knock on one of our friend's door and soon there are 5-6 children running and riding around. Playdates, afternoon snacks, picnics on the driveway, bubble blowing, playing in the sprinklers, blue berry eating, sidewalk drawing .... laughing and crying ... we share it all. My sweet neighbors would take my children for a couple of hours so I can work on my paper ... they care for scraped knees, thirsty throats and hungry tummies ... it's like having 5 mommies and 5 daddies for each child. I love it!!!

I appreciate all of these special people tremendously!!!

Happy Birthday America!!

We love celebrations and for the most part they spread out evenly throughout the year. But for a while there was a big gap between an early summer and a late summer birthday that left us with no official excuses for streamers and cake. So last year Lutza and I came up with the idea that instead of celebrating Independence Day, we are going to call it America's birthday.

So this year 4th of July became an official birthday. The kids have been talking about our little party for weeks: they invited their friends, chose the cake and when the day came, they were busy decorating the house with streamers.

Oh, what fun we had. With 9 kids running around it was a party. We put candles on one of the cakes and sang the Star Spangled Banner ... it was so cute.

Between 4 families we had a bunch of fireworks ..... some were received with joy - mostly by the boys - and others were watched from a distance with covered ears. My sweet Vidor got hooked from sparkler one and moved onto some bigger stuff (excuse my ignorance for not knowing what they were) and I think he officially graduated as the Assistant Firework Lighter for his Daddy. Lutza was pretty bold too, but Bendeguz was 'All-Done' after the first loud one ... surprisingly by the time we ran out, he began to like it.