Dinner this evening. I give Baby A a handful of bite-sized pieces of chicken and some roasted carrot. She shovels three pieces in her mouth and flings the rest onto the floor. I pick up the pieces and return them to her tray. She eats another bite and sweeps the rest off her tray and across the room. None land on the splat mat. I try giving her fresh chicken from my plate and she pushes it away.
I offer her bread with butter. She spends five minutes greasing her palms and hurls the bread across the dining room table before howling to be released.
Welcome to feeding time at the zoo.
While the smaller monkey flings food and communicates her needs through a series of grunts, the slightly-less-small monkey refuses chicken and carrots and pushes her sweet potatoes around for 10 minutes after having her plea for a spoonful of butter denied.
Feeding time was followed by indoor exercise for the animals. This consisted of taking all toys out of their places, disassembling them, and abandoning them to climb the furniture.
Before the zoo closed for the evening, visitors got to see the monkeys perform tricks. Tricks like shaking milk out of a supposedly leak-proof sippy cup onto the carpet, upending a bowl of Cheerios and unzipping Mommy's purse, removing her mobile phone and dialing the last number called.
This post is inspired by the Parent Bloggers Network's "I Live in a Zoo" Blog Blast, sponsored by iKnow Letters, Animals and Sounds.
