the bear-necessities...

every year, lamar students are freed from classes for MLK day and matt and i usually wind up doing nothing. this year however, we got to keep our neice for the day since she was out of school but her parents weren't off work. matt did some hunting and found that the houston zoo has a few days a year -including MLK- that admission is free. so we decided to surprise gracie with a cool trip with her cool aunt and uncle.

unfortunately, miss grace was also planning a surprise... a urinary tract infection. the poor kid was squirming and dancing all evening the night before we were to go. i asked her mom why she had not gone to the doctor and carrie said she was worried about her missing anymore school since she had been sick 2 days the prior week with something totally unrelated. so the next morning, gracie was in the bathroom about three of every five minutes while trying to get ready. i couldnt stand it anymore because i knew she was miserable. i thought if we could get her in, that she could be seen and not have to miss school. a two'fer, i thought. so by 9 we had an appointment, and by 10 we were in beaumont, trying to get a 7 year old to pee in a cup. the dr gave us some antibiotic samples (yeah, no trip to the pharmacy!) but he failed to have them reconstituted... we then had to go to another location where they were to do another test, and have her fill yet another cup. by this time gracie was getting hungry again and our hope for a fun day at the zoo was fading. she didnt feel sick, she just had to pee every 5 seconds. i still had to go to a pharmacy, get a syringe that measured mLs, mix up her meds and get her fed.

when asked, grace didnt care what was for lunch. we had been wanting to try out a vietnamese place in bmt to see if it was as good as the place we like in houston and she agreed! she ordered something akin to chicken noodle soup and loved it! who knew?! grace got several awesome-kid-points for that.

so then we decided that since her medicine was kicking in that she might still be able to make it to the zoo. she really wanted to go. after sleeping the whole way (read "no pit-stops"), we arrived. it was the most beautiful january day to spend outside. the weather was perfect, and little-bit woke up happy, so double yeah! on the top of the list to see were the bears, then monkeys, then turtles. we managed to see all of them plus many more. gracie rode around on matts shoulders.

we talked about the dancing elephant (no kidding, he was literally grinning and swaying), how bats are really mammals, how venomous snakes have a triangular head, the difference between apes and monkeys, and how humans are primates too.

shes such a smart kid! i found out the next day that she recounted to her mom on the ride home the story about the borneo orangutan named doc who was born one day after i was. she even remembered the date to tell her mom.

we stopped for dinner at tortugas. by the end of the meal she was saying "i have a pet turtle at home" in spanish. uncle matt is the linguist of the family. i know to you moms out there, all this probably seems like just another day. but i truly enjoyed spending the day with matt and gracie. i enjoyed them. it just wasnt the typical babysitting duty ive become accustomed to. ive often felt like i dont really deal with 6ish-11ish year olds very well and ive wondered if i would lose the relationships i have with my neices and nephews once they got to that age. instead, i love seeing their personalities and interests develop and change. sure, they can still be bratty with the best of 'em at times. but they're becoming very cool, though still very small, people. after all, they better be good... they've already agreed to babysit mine one day. mwah ha ha...