Delgado Family Journal: Cuddly Kids for a Cuddly Kid

Aunt Ellen took us to the Animal Farm Petting Zoo in Manorville this afternoon. Alex had a wonderful time. As soon as we walked out of the front desk area, we were greeted with the bleats of lambs and kids. Hungry little guys they were. They gathered near the gate and made it difficult to even get into their pen.

Alex was delighted.

He didn't really like giving the lambs and kids the bottles. He thought they were too pushy, as in literally, pushy. The juveniles and adults kept butting us for milk. He preferred to feed the piglets instead.

As if they weren't aggressive about getting the bottles. Perhaps the difference was that Alex much preferred being on the opposite side of the fence from them. That tended to be a trend for him. He loved seeing the animals. He loved the turtles.

When it came to feeding other animals, though, he wasn't so on board. Even after Aunt Ellen showed him how, he much preferred throwing the feed over the fences.

Then he got hold of the Feed bucket and that was it. He became a regular Feed Dictator.

But that wasn't half bad compared to his resolve about remaining on the playground. We gave him a few minutes and even played furniture delivery with him. We talked to and fed a camel penned nearby. (I tried what little Arabic I knew. He was more interested in feeding.) We asked Alex the species of the animal we were talking to. Nothing moved him. Eventually, we had to pursuade Alex off the playground only through the promise of visiting another playground in the distance.

We got to the Duck Pond, where Alex was content to give away the rest of the feed: through the planks of the bridge. There was one enterprising duck staying under the bridge to catch all the feed Alex was pushing through the planks. It entertained Alex, so, I was all good with it. (Besides, it was funny.) He kept calling the ducks as he did it too. "Here ducky, ducky!" And quacking. Lots of quacking.

Mostly, he went about it like it was a job.

The best part, though, was visiting the baby animals. He got to hold a baby bunny. He kept telling it "Don't run away!", but at such a loud volume, we were sure it would do just that.

There were rides to be had too. He turned his nose up at the free pony rides, but was all about the train ride, even asking for the operator to drive it. He took the opportunity to enjoy his juice box along the way.

Then we heard of a free turtle train ride. When I saw it, it looked a little young for Alex. That didn't stop him! It did move really slow though.

Our last stop was to revisit the piglets, lambs and kids. Alex was thrilled to feed the piglets some of our remaining bottles.

And at the kid and lamb pen, he finally got the hang of feeding them the stock feed. He even got to hug a kid; an enterprising young goat who found freedom by crawling under the outside gate - provided someone let him get there.