Teens Do Still Love the Zoo! Who knew?

I am SO glad the kids are back in school now, no more, "I'm bored, Mom!"

Although when I hear the words, “I’m bored,” I instantly hand a vacuum or sponge to the complainer, so my kids avoid complaining, or at least not loud enough for me to hear. Now that my kids are older, they tend to just lounge around, looking bored, but not saying those dreaded words, since I always have a plethora of chores that I would love done, but don’t have time to do myself.

A few weeks ago, I decided that a trip to the zoo would cure any boredom, both for the kids and me. So I announced the night before, “We’re going to the Oakland Zoo tomorrow!” All I could hear were the crickets, happily serenading me outside the open kitchen window.

My daughter, 17 and the one of three children who will never say, “I’m bored,” commented, very nonchalantly, “Oh, darn, I have plans,” and left the room, texting furiously as she went. Don’t think I don’t know that she was texting anyone and everyone to quick, think of something we can do so I don’t have to go and watch my mom talk to the flamingos or the monkeys.

That left my youngest son, 14, still at an age for me to manipulate into a trip to the zoo. I told him, “That’s okay, you and I will have SO much fun!” He looked at me, like a deer in the headlights, and asked if he could bring a friend. He was probably thinking it would be fun for his friend to see all the animals too, but really, who am I kidding?

He was probably thinking there was safety in numbers and they could discourage me from trying to smuggle a goat out of the petting zoo or sneak into the backstage areas where they keep the really cool babies and other animals. No, I would never actually do that, although how cool it be to have a baby goat?

The morning of our trip to the Oakland Zoo I carefully packed a backpack with everything we would need for our amazing zoo adventure. I included sunscreen, bottled water, my camera, the extra battery for the camera (I take LOTS of zoo pictures), and snacks, just in case I’m looking at a cool animal exhibit and the kids get hungry, I can fling some trail mix their way, and still look at the baby critters. All set. The boys were stoked. I could tell.

They sat in the back seat of the minivan, kind of sleepy. They should have done what I did and gone to bed at 9:00 pm, so they’d be rested and ready to go too. As we merged onto 680 I happily handed the boys their own copies of the map of the zoo I had downloaded and printed the night before. I know, they give those out at the gate, but I had planned our route for maximum animal sightings. Not only that, I found out the feeding schedules. Excellent.

The boys forgot their maps in the car, I discovered as I paid for our entrance fee, but that’s okay, I had my marked up copy to lead us through each and every exhibit. After a short bathroom break, we met up in front of a sign that said “Coyote Quiet,” demonstrating the sign language for being quiet. This, I guess is so you don’t scare the animals away and everyone can see the critters.

I told the boys, “Darn, you forgot your maps; you’ll have to remember which animals you want to see first so you don’t miss out.” The boys, both very talented at texting and still looking at me, said they wanted to see them all. Yup, see them all, Mom. So off we went. First stop, the flamingos. Oh wow, such beautiful birds. I posed the boys in front of the flamingos.

Snap, snap, and there I had excellent footage of the birds, perfectly behind the boys. My turn! I handed my son the camera and he took my picture and then asked me what was next.

Oh, we saw lots of critters, everything from bears, elephants, meerkats and more. I ooh'd and ahhh'd and the boys asked when lunch was. I told them we were sure to run across the snack bar soon. See why you should have brought your pre-marked map? Then we found the giraffes, my most favorite critter at the zoo. I took lots and lots of giraffe pictures.

The only downside to photographing a giraffe is their area is SO big! They were scattered across their fake Savannah and they kept bending those long graceful necks down to eat, so when I had the boys perfectly posed in front of the giraffe, boom, he goes to get another bite of his food and no more giraffe.

I have to give the boys credit, they were SO patient. They moved to the left. They moved to the right, they even crouched down, just a smidge, to get all three giraffes behind them. Then it was my turn. We switched places and I had to pick where to stand ... I think the Oakland Zoo has about 8 giraffes and one of them was the baby, so I wanted him in the picture. Every time we took a picture, my son would show me on the digital screen and ask me, “is that good?” and I would say, yes, but let’s get a few more, just to be sure.

Then a very nice man asked if we wanted a picture of all of us together? Oh my goodness, my scrapbook was going to be awesome! I asked the volunteer, who had no idea what he was getting into, to take several; just to be sure the sneaky giraffes weren’t bending down or walking away from my photo shot.

Then we ate lunch while I whipped out my map to plan the rest of our Zoo adventure.  Fed and happy, off we went to see more critters. I was happy to see when I got home that neither of the boys had Facebook posted anything negative about their day and actually my son’s status stated, “Going to the Oakland Zoo today!” My son’s friend actually used the giraffe picture of all of us as his Facebook profile picture. Best day ever!  

Just so you know, I did talk to the animals, all of them, and I swear they talked back to me, probably because I learned how to be “Coyote Quiet!”