Zoos Go Blue

Now that we live twelve minutes away from Central Park, I have been looking forward to taking Kensi to go see the penguin exhibit. One of her all-time favorite bedtime stories is “And Tango Makes Three”, which we highlighted back on March 1, 2008 PKG (Pre- Kensington Grace). The book is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male Chinstrap Penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo. The book follows the six years of their life when they formed a couple and were given an egg to raise. This egg was obtained from a male-female penguin couple, named Betty and Porkey, who had two eggs and could not care for both at once. Roy and Silo took turns sitting on the egg, and eventually it hatched. The female chick was named "Tango" by the zookeepers. Kensi favorite part of the book is when the little chick breaks out of her shell. When we read it, she makes the chip chip (egg cracking) chirp (baby) sounds J

The weekend we moved here, was the weekend of Hurricane Sandy. Then we traveled to Texas to visit Fazha and the family, then to Disney for Thanksgiving (and Kensington’s Birthday) and then it became too cold. With spring finally here, and me working with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and their member zoos to create a national “Zoos Go Blue” campaign for Autism Speaks, this weekend was the perfect opportunity to bring Kensi along while I went to ‘work’ this weekend. Between this, last week’s Walk Now for Autism Speaks event at Dorney Park that she accompanied me to and ‘Bring You Child To Work Day” earlier this week, she thinks everyday is a party for papa at work.

Sporting her new penguin earrings and decked out in blue (well, we started in blue, until a strawberry milk incident), we headed to go see Tango!

Kensi, being her ever observant self, had to point out all of the puzzle pieces she saw… including the stickers everyone was wearing. Yes, everyone. It’s cute in the beginning. After 10 minutes I was looking for a blue muzzle.

Tango, unfortunately, went to go visit her cousins in the Bronx Zoo, but we got to see all of her penguin friends, help feed the ducks some baby shrimp, go into the rainforest and see the birds and reptiles as well as play in the waterfall, watch the 4D version of Ice Age, visit the children’s/petting zoo and gorge ourselves in popcorn and dipp’n dots ice cream. Thankfully, she didn't put two-and-two together to realize this zoo is nothing like it's namesame in Madagascar. No zebras wearing rainbow afro's.

 

After watching the sea lions, we headed through the park over to sheep meadow, through the daffodils, over to the band shell, to the bow bridge, around the lake, back down to Chess and Checkers, through Heckscher Park – where we stopped to watch a baseball game between the Revolutions and Hells Kitchen (Kensi was rooting for them so we decided to sit in the bleachers and cheer on the Revolutions. Unfortunately, they weren’t to good and Kensi kept calling out “you missed” and “that didn’t go far”, so we got up and headed over to the Hells Kitchen side. My girl only roots for winners!

We then circled around we found the Friedsam Memorial Carousel (one of the largest in the world), that Donald Trump recently bought. The famed Carousel, with its sweet calliope music and 57 magnificent horses, is the fourth to stand in Central Park since 1871. [Kensi has ridden carousels in PA, NJ, upstate NY, DC, MA, FL, TX, CA, Ontario, Vancouver, and now NYC.] After a full day of excitement, it was time for us to go home. As soon as we exited the park, she was out like a light in the stroller. I couldn’t dare put her on a subway or taxi and wake her, so I walked thirty-six blocks.  

Unlike the other penguin movie that Kensi loves so much (and is currently playing in the background as I type this), papa doesn't have Happy Feet.

"Papa, Kensi turtle is hiding from you..."

 

"Turtle going to come out and give you a kiss..."

"all this work makes my turtle neck hurt"