Elephants, Elephants, Elephants...Oh My!

We decided to venture to the zoo on Saturday with my nephew and their Mimi. W wanted to see the new elephant exhibit and we talked about it and he
was excited about it. We picked everyone up and headed to Chick-fil-a at W's request. When we sat down with our food, W announced that the nuggets tasted funny and he was not going to eat them. This should have been a big red flag to me as to how the rest of the day would go!!! But in my denial, we finished lunch and headed on our way to the zoo.

Now the Birmingham Zoo has lots of new things to do and we were excited to see them but W had a different plan. "I want to see the elephants." was his chant. I explained to him that we were going to see them and as we made our way to the elephants there were all these interesting things along the way. But W was on mission to get to those stupid elephants. We went in the reptile house and W kept saying "Let's go, let's go." We tried to see the sea lions do tricks but W said, "Let's go to the elephants." Nephew loves birds and they had a bird sanctuary that you can go in and feed them and let them land on you. W would need a Valium to go in there so I suggested we go watch them feed the alligator a rabbit as was announced on the intercom. But no, he wanted to see the elephants. So we sat on a bench and whined while waiting for nephew and the birds.

Now I am completely annoyed by this point and asking myself at the same time why I would expect anything different. This is no surprise that he is so obsessed with one thing. So we FINALLY get to the elephant and he looks at one of them for about a minute and says, "Let's go." WHAT!!!! All we have heard is elephant, elephant, elephant and now he is not interested??!? I almost lost my stuff at this revelation!

So after regrouping, we decide that W wants to see the butterflies (really?? that is what you want to see for your $14.00??) so W and I head to the butterflies
while Mimi and nephew go see some more animals. Do you think I can get to the stupid, I mean lovely butterflies??? NO! Every route on the map is blocked so after walking for 20 minutes W says forget the butterflies let's go to the water fun area. GREAT!

We meet up at the water area and get swimsuits on and they decide they want to go to the bubbles. Need a token! Mimi buys them a token and of course W will not put one toe in there as expected. He will not go in the water area because the ground is hot and doesn't feel right so he says, "Let's go home." I am SO glad I hauled this beach bag all over the zoo so you can NOT go in the water!! As we are leaving by route of the gift shop, Mimi asks Will if he had a good time. He says, "YES!!" I guess in his own warped way he had fun so why am I still annoyed that he did not have the kind of typical fun that I want him to have? Something that I am still working on--changing my expectations for him and pure acceptance of his quirky little self.

Next time we are going to just go sit on the porch and wait for a butterfly...