Wild Nights at Werribee Zoo

These school holidays, Werribee Open Range Zoo were open of a evening (they normally close at 5pm). I'd seen information about it and thought it looked cool, then forgot all about it. On Friday morning my Zoo Membership newsletter had a reminder about it, and I realised if we wanted to do it there were only 2 nights left. I mentioned it to Tony and he was keen to go, and suggested we go along after baseball on Saturday afternoon.

So we met after baseball (around 5.30pm) at a Red Rooster near the Western Ring Road, grabbed some  dinner and left Tony's car there, and drove through the rain (finally some rain! Its been many weeks since we've had rain like this) to the Zoo, arriving just before 6.30. I was wondering if there'd be many people there, being a cold wet night and the last night-time session - the carpark was full and we could only find a creative parking spot over on the edge...

The zoo looked quite exciting in the dark, with just enough lights on for us to find our way to the entrance (although Liam and I did both step into a deep, water-filled pothole). Inside was even more exciting, there were lots of glittery lights, and triangle frames with fairy lights wrapped around them (to show the way down the paths) and in some areas there were tin cans with holes punched in them, and lights inside, which gave a speckled look to the light on the ground - it was like walking through a forest in the daytime, with the speckled filtered light coming through the trees.

We sat on wet hay bales in the rain and watched a Fire Show - some quite impressive fire twirling coupled with a lot of gymnastics, entertaining to watch (although a bit scary when one of the sparklers flew out of his hand towards the crowd).

From there we hurried to the cheetah exhibit to see them being fed - there were so many people there by the time we arrived we couldn't see through the glass so tried to see from another vantage point but only got a faint glimpse of them - when we got back to the glass most people had left so we were easily able to see both cheetahs eating, and then one came right up to the glass and walked past us all for a while, he wandered off and came back another 2 times - the kids were face to face with him (he was between Millie and Liam's height so they in particular were looking him right in the eye) and it was completely worth driving all that way just to experience this (especially since the cheetah is one of Liam's favourite animals). They were bigger than I expected, and their tails were long and seemed much firmer than a small cat's tail. One of them had his hackles up on the back of his neck and look quite threatening.

From there we saw some hippos asleep in the water, then went and roasted marshmallows over a fire. All 3 kids are getting quite good at roasting their marshmallows to the level of meltiness and crispness that they each prefer.

We wandered past the African Wild Dogs but they were hiding, then saw one of the lions sitting up in his shelter - then he lay back down again and snuggled up with his brother. The vervet monkeys had gone to bed and we saw a couple of groups of them all huddled together.

The last stop was in one of the African huts where there was flouro light (it felt like being in a nightclub. Kind of) and lots of flouro hoops, plates to balance on sticks, scarves to wave and balls in bags to twirl around. They all looked quite spectacular and we all had a go at everything. Liam's boots looked phosphorescent in the light, it was like he had alien feet. The girls both had a good go with the hula hoops, I had no idea they were so proficient.

When we finally tore ourselves away from there it was time for the zoo to close. We took off wet clothes and snuggled up in the car and drove home listening to 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' on Audio CD.

A very enjoyable spontaneous family night out, even in the rain. I'm exceptionally pleased that we went and will try to make it over there for one of their summer night events in January.

Halloween

For weeks the kids have been talking about Halloween and wanting to go trick or treating, and wanting to dress up. We've had lots of Halloween based discussions - what it means, why there are scary TV shows all day on Halloween, lots of talk about witches (interesting too that even though we are reading Harry Potter, when Caitlin thinks of witches and dressing up as one, its as the cackling, scary type witch), lots of thought about what types of lollies they'd like to get on Halloween.... But we hadn't really firmed up any plan about what to do on the night. I was feeling a bit unsure about the whole thing as I'd never celebrated Halloween myself (although when I was in Canada I did go on a Ghost Tour of Victoria, BC, on Halloween and that was very cool). Then yesterday morning I read Pam Larrichia's newsletter and she she suggested embracing Halloween in whatever way the children wanted to, and that sounded like a joyful way to approach it!

So then I started gearing myself up for letting the kids go into town and knocking on doors, and when they woke up I asked them what they wanted to do - their idea was to dress up in their costumes and knock on our doors (we have 5 external doors to our house) and Trick or Treat at home. Which was perfect, didn't seem too challenging to me, and I was very glad that I had let them tell me what they wanted rather than me offering what I thought they wanted.

We went into town later to take Millie to the doctor and then take Caitlin to Girl Guides, and stopped at the shops in between to get lollies. We went into the Discount Store first (its only new to town so still very exciting) and Caitlin bought some fake fingers with long red nails to add to her costume, then we popped into the IGA and bought a variety of packets of lollies. Caitlin wanted a lantern as well (because she wanted to do the Trick or Treating after dark) and I meant to go back and grab one on the way out but I forgot. Then I remembered they had the lanterns they made for the Into The Light Festival at the start of spring, and she was happy with the idea of using them.

I dropped her at Guides then went home and kind of forgot about Halloween as I was quite tired and just wanted to relax a bit. When she came home she reminded me I had said I'd look for her broom and her witches hat - I managed to find the broom but not the hat. Also found her wig which has the same gold tinsel as her broom. I offered to make a witches hat out of black cardboard which turned out ok, I was even able to find some white netting to put over it so it looked more like the bought one that I couldn't find (we bought it for Halloween last year and I'm not sure when it was last used). I found an old white sheet for Millie who wanted to be a ghost, and cut some eye holes out of it and she was very pleased. In the meantime Liam had put his dragon costume on and was knocking on the doors - he didn't want to wait until dark, so we gave him a few lollies and then convinced him to wait a bit for more, because Caitlin really wanted to do it together after sunset. 

After a late tea it was finally dark enough and all costumes were ready. For about an hour the kids were outside, knocking on our different doors, we'd open the door and Caitlin would cackle, they all shouted 'Trick or Treating' and Caitlin would cackle 'This house is haunted!!!!' and we'd give them the lolly basket to choose from (then there'd be a quick negotiation about whether they could eat this one now or save it - Caitlin likes it to be even so they tried to reach agreement each time). Millie joined in for a while then came inside. It was fun for everyone, and a very easy way to celebrate Halloween. They didn't eat all the lollies - they actually called an end to it when they felt like they had enough (probably about half the stash) and came inside very happy.

Paying Attention

I was reminded this morning that taking a moment to find out more information (and not making assumptions) can make a big difference to the outcome of an interaction. 

I was using the laptop and Liam had been sitting next to me using the ipad, showing me what he was building and discovering on Minecraft. (And I'm constantly amazed at what he's doing on Minecraft - I had a go when I downloaded it and I couldn't figure out how to do anything, he's picked it up and learnt so much in only a week or so - and yesterday he showed me the highest mountain in his world, which he has named Mt Everest - I didn't know that he knew about Mt Everest!)

I'd gotten up out of my chair for some reason, and when I came back and sat down, he climbed into my lap and put the ipad on the keyboard of the laptop. I said 'that's not going to work' so he picked it up, but I still couldn't see over his head or easily reach the keyboard so that I could comfortably use the computer. I was initially frustrated and wanted to just move him off my lap so I could do MY stuff... but I breathed for a minute and explained that he was so big now that I couldn't see if his head was in front of me like that, and I suggested that he move back to the chair he had been in, but that I'd bring it closer to mine (cos I assumed that he was in my lap because he wanted to be close to me physically). He said 'but I need to be near the charger!' - which was on the other side of me to where he'd been sitting - so then I was able to plug the ipad in to the charger, put him on my chair, and move the laptop over to where he had been sitting, and we were both happy.

It was only a brief interaction but it could have turned into frustration so easily - however  because I'd been able to listen to what he wanted rather than jumping to my own conclusions and enacting my initial solution, we were able to be joyfully together and both have our needs met quite easily.