Zoological Society of London

The kids and I spent Wednesday at the zoo, a trip they'd been looking forward to for weeks. I came home a frazzled mess after dealing with yet another Samuel meltdown, but Johnny and Evie must have had fun because they keep asking if we can go back. Anybody want to come babysit Samuel so I can take the older two back to the zoo?

The zoo was an easy bus ride from our apartment, at the north end of Regents Park. We had to walk through part of the park to get to the zoo entrance, and my immediate Cragun family will appreciate that the first sign of animals was a glimpse of zebra butts through the fence! What is it with zebras?

First stop, at Johnny's request, was the reptile house, where we found all manner of horribly venomous creatures. Here's Johnny next to the black mambas and a sign marking the place where that scene in the first Harry Potter was filmed.

And then we went to the aquarium, which turned out to be my personal hell. I had no idea that Samuel was going to deal with his jetlag so poorly. Really, I should have known, though. He IS 2 years old, after all. Johnny and Evie were running from tank to tank in the aquarium, yelling "Oh, cool!" "Mom, come look! Mom! Mom! You're going to MISS it!" when Samuel totally fell apart. It was the kind of meltdown that John and I call a "shoes-on-shoes-off" fit in honor of one of 2-year-old Johnny's gems. We were driving home from the Fourth of July concert and fireworks, and Johnny was in the backseat screaming his head off. He yelled that he wanted his shoes on, so I put them on. He immediately started screaming that he wanted his shoes off, so I took them off. Then he wanted them on again, then off, then on, etc. This continued for a 45-minute drive home.

So Samuel had a "shoes-on-shoes-off" fit all the way through the aquarium, with all kinds of people staring at me with varying degrees of pity, disgust, or annoyance. I finally wrestled Sam into his stroller and dragged all three kids outside to a snack stand, where we sat at a picnic table for another 20 minutes or so until Samuel screamed himself out. I admit that I cried a bit, too. I'm not sure why I'm sharing this. My life isn't all roses, OK?

Anyway, I'm happy to say that the rest of the day was much better, though Samuel was still pretty cranky. Johnny and Evie were having a blast.

One thing that makes the London Zoo extra cool is its history. It was established in 1826, and you can still see some of the original cages (no longer in use), buildings and a tunnel. The building that houses the giraffes, zebras and okapis has been in use since the mid-1800s, and has always housed giraffes.

Checking out the okapi

Master of Disaster

Evie says she liked the giraffes best.

They also had a lot of cool newer exhibits. Who knew meerkats could be so interesting?

Penguin Beach was probably my favorite.

Watching the penguins swim underwater

Evie was dying to get to the big cats, which we didn't see until the end of the day. They didn't disappoint.

Not in the wild, but plenty impressive

Getting friendly with a serval

We stayed until the zoo closed, so we got to see some of the animals getting their dinner. These spider monkeys got fruit and something spoon fed from what looked like a take-out container.

Here are the kids on the way out of the zoo after a long, fun (for two of them anyway) day. You can see that Samuel's in cranky-pants mode again.

John asked me how the London Zoo compares with other zoos we've visited. Although ZSL was pretty fantastic, I have to say that the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium still tops the list for me. We'll give London a close second.