Go See Animals

Somewhere between the 7th time she went there for a field trip and the 50th time I made her go because we have a membership, Alexis grew tired of the Pittsburgh Zoo. It's not their fault, truly. It's because there is a limit to the number of times you can see the same things within a relatively short amount of time. Over the years, I've found ways to get Alexis' interest back, but it has required some effort for a while.

And then there's Mila. Mila has crash-landed into peak THE ZOO IS AWESOME ZOMG! She would go every day if it were possible because there are birds and monkeys and cats and ALL OF THE THINGS ARE AMAAAAAZZZING. Mila woke up every day last week asking to "go see animals" so by the time Sunday rolled around, I was out of excuses.

Thus, two kids piled into the car. One wanted to go with all of her might. The other was willing to go because I had promised her possession of my phone so she could play Pokemon Go.

(You can stop trying to tell me the game is dumb now. Watching Alexis groan and mumble "Go away" to imaginary bats is FANTASTIC, as is that thing where she wants to walk around outside all of the time these days.)

In the interest of full disclosure, my plan was to photograph it all. That's what was in it for me -- an opportunity to take lots and lots of photos of the girls. But, that's not how it played out.

The first part of the plan worked like a charm. Mila was as happy as can be looking at the animals. Alexis and her Pokemon Go plan, however, fell apart. Somewhere between flamingos and the lions, Alexis looked at me, visually caressed my camera, and then sweetly asked to take possession. The idea was that she would take a photo or two, but the reality became that I didn't get my camera back the rest of the day. Alexis didn't just take over official photographer duties, she demanded that I teach her how to actually use the camera. By the time we left, she was changing shutter speed correctly while in manual mode.

There would have been tears of pride, but I was too annoyed that my brilliant plan to photograph the day didn't pan out the way I wanted.

It's a really good thing Alexis did a good job.