I left Live and Learn feeling intensely positive. I felt happy and refreshed, empowered and affirmed, my love tank was full, and I added many new tools to my collection. As I’m writing this Friday morning, I’m feeling quite the opposite of all those things. The questioning keeps crawling up my spine. Did I do enough? Say enough? Ask enough questions? I barely saw Skylar all week! Is that ok? Did I check on him at the pool enough? I walked by every hour, and even more. Was it enough? He doesn’t always want me around. Will that change? Did Milo enjoy his time? Did he get to do enough crafts? He loves crafts. Did TJ get to do all that he wanted do? Was I accommodating enough for him? It sure was difficult taking the two younger ones. Did I smile about it? Or did I complain? I hope I didn’t complain. I still miss everyone, badly. Why didn’t I get any emails addresses, snail mail addresses or phone numbers? What was I thinking? Well, if anyone wants to find ME, I’m on the ning site and on myspace under the same title name. Ugh…… I think I have the post-conference blues. Seriously… after such an intense high, I’m feeling a little low.
It’s helping to remember that each and every day, I had someone come to me and compliment Skylar. “Thank you for sharing Skylar with us” said one. “Skylar is a really cool kid, my boys love him” said another. And more than once parents were telling me that their little ones were talking about Skylar all night long. That really makes my heart smile. He is so wonderful with kids younger than him. It’s such a natural gift that he doesn’t even know why they like him so much. He asks, why do the little kids follow me around all the time? Each day I reported the comments to him if he wasn’t around. As I’m feeling a little blue today, I’m going to keep thinking of that. When I get frustrated, its reminds me to focus on the positive and what a spectacular kid he really is!
If I were to measure how much younger kids like Skylar, than I could tell you that his brothers love him double!
On Monday when we went to the Metro Richmond Zoo. I don’t really like zoo’s in the first place. But we are all a little enticed by the giraffe’s. Giraffe feeding? Just how do we accomplish this?
Well, the walkway is built up to giraffe level! That’s how! See Skylar’s hand? He let the giraffe eat form his hand for a good 15 minutes or so. Each time he was tell us how much more disgusting it was than the last! but he kept doing it. Laughing harder and harder. I sure am glad I carry baby wipes around these days. Giraffe’s have the nastiest, stickiest saliva! Like they need it with an 18-20 inch prehensile toungue! We all enjoyed their company a great deal. This was my favorite picture from the day.
This picture really surprised me! Milo can be a little timid and shy about new things. He took a few tries but eventually he had this one eating out of his hand. 
It was HOT on Monday! I had Phoenix wrapped up in his wrap. He slept soundly during the whole zoo experience. (Weird, I know) After the zoo I set him on my seat to cool down and so I could dry off. He stayed right there for awhile before woke to nurse.
Skylar really enjoyed the baby chimp. He certainly was silly. He would have stayed there while we walked around. I can’t say I was comfortable leaving him alone like that so we made a deal to pass by the chimp a few more times. He talked the whole time about how he wanted to have a chimp for a pet. We were able to talk a lot about zoos and how some animals are rescued, but some are not. how the animals at this particular zoo didn’t seem to have a lot of room or be very happy. The apes had a VERY small island. It was sort of sad how little space the animals had. I did wonder how they aquired these animals and why such small living quarters. Some of the animals seemed unhappy too. We had a nice conversation without ruining his “I need a chimp in my room” dream.
The boys with their new toy chimps. The next best thing. 