muddy april fool

This morning as the boys and I left the apartment bound for the Prospect Park Zoo, my mind scrolled through a small list of things I'd forgotten to stash in our daypack -- things like sunscreen and my water bottle. But by the time I'd remembered each item, we were already on the train and it was too late to go back. But it didn't matter; we were going to have fun anyway.

We arrived at the zoo and headed first to the barn to feed the goats, stopping only to watch the seals swim a few laps and mentally note the time of their next feeding. As you can see below, Garrett loves the petting zoo portion. Caleb thought it was pretty great, too.


After a stop in the monkey house, we headed for the Discovery Trail. You know, that part of every zoo with groundhog burrows you can poke your head through and thick-roped spider webs you can climb on. And, as in the case of this particular zoo, big plastic lily pads you can walk on to cross a small muddy pond.

It took Garrett only about three seconds and one wrong step to make me think of another item I probably should have thought include in the daypack: an entire change of size 3T clothes. Because apparently Garrett thought that those lily pads were superfluous. Unfortunately that line of thinking landed him face down in the pond and soaked up to his chest in thick, black mud.

I know this will all be funny later, but it sure wasn't right then. All the Jewish mothers in the vicinity, who clucked their tongues as they gave their sparkly clean children stern looks that said, You'd better not be foolish enough to do what that boy just did, made sure of that. I pulled out a baby wipe, which turned out to be pretty useless, to try to clean up some of the mess, then dragged Garrett by the hand to the restroom.

Where, of course, there were no paper towels. I fished around some more in my bag and found Caleb's burp cloth, grateful for once that I hadn't forgotten that. I rinsed it with water, wiped Garrett down, and repeated until he was more wet than muddy. And then, because by now the fun was definitely over, we walked back to the train.

Sometimes I am brave and I actually want to take both of my boys through the subway system to some faraway destination where we can enjoy a fun outing together. Some days, though -- April Fool's Day being one of them -- it might be best that we stay closer to home.