.jpg)
Single Dadding
Kira left for her personal vacation yesterday, much to everyone’s dismay (except hers). Hakan seems to keep forgetting that she’s gone; he keeps saying things like, “When Mommy wakes up…” I have to remind him that she is in another state for just a few days, but that she’ll be back.
As the old saying goes, when the cat’s away, the mice will try to fill the sorrowful void with various activities that are new and fun. Well, I’m paraphrasing. In any case, we went out to a petting zoo!
After a bit of a drive, we made it to a little farm, which is mostly a horse ranch. We got to feed and pet the goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, llamas, ducks, and ponies, and we admired from a little distance the enormous pigs, who are not nearly as charming as Charlotte’s Web would have us believe.
Poor Merritt probably enjoyed it the least. I had hoped he would take a small nap on the way there, but he fought it so that when we arrived he was pretty on edge. He sat in the stroller, and when we went up to the ponies, one stuck its head close to Merritt, terrifying him beyond anything I’ve ever seen. I quickly picked him up out of the stroller to comfort him and show him that the horses (probably) wouldn’t eat him, as his older brothers have much more meat on them. He spent the rest of the trip in my arms, smiling and chuckling occasionally, but a bit overwhelmed by it all. I suppose we need to work our way up from waving at Avey’s betta fish to feeding llamas with our hands. He fell asleep on the ride home and then slumbered more when we got home.
Avey seemed particularly taken with the llamas, even naming them all. There’s a small chance that she’ll now want a llama instead of or in addition to the python she covets. She didn’t waste a moment once we got in the car, immediately asking if people keep llamas as pets. I couldn’t help but think of the scene in Napoleon Dynamite.
It was a nice outing, so hopefully I can keep up with their expectations for the rest of the time Kira’s gone. Wish me luck!