Sunday, September 18, 2011

We're Going To the Zoo





My favorite time to be at the zoo is in the morning. No one is ever there. The one exception happened this last week. To help bring home the science lesson for the day, we went to the kid part of the zoo where they have various interactive habitats so the kids could see why certain animals need different structures to help them survive. As fascinating as science is, it was no match for the play ground and goat petting part. I wasn't really into the play ground and was relieved when a friend called. While I chatted the kids asked if they could go into the goat petting area. Strollers aren't allowed in so I stayed out with Joaquin and "watched" my kiddos brush lethargic goats. After a few minutes, some lady came out and asked me if I was the mother to the kids in the petting zoo. I promptly got off the phone to discover the local news station wanted to interview me.

I confess, I was more than a little embarrassed to be on the phone, but agreed to do the interview. It turns out (surprise surprise) that Sponge Bob is bad for kids! I won't get into the monologue I had with the news guy, but I think that he was disappointed that he interviewed a mom who didn't find Sponge Bob charming and therefore wasn't shocked by the recent discovery. Poor news guy. I think he wanted a good ole' stand up for my bad habits even when someone tells me I am wrong speech and all he got was a sweaty mom of four standing on the soapbox for higher learning and giving something to your kids to watch that isn't spastic. In the end, they didn't even get a good interaction shot. They asked me to interact with the kids as they videoed. Weird. Didn't they remember I wasn't in there interacting in the first place. In fact, if he hadn't cut the interview, I was about to go into my theories on child obesity and the lack of non-hovering parenting in the wild.

Too bad the mens US open match was going on forever which made my interview nonexistent (or at least that is what I am telling myself).

4 comments:

Emily said...

you crack me up--by the way: The glass at the zoo is obviosly pretty clean. That shot of tiago and talia, it took me a minute to realize that there was glass separating them from the animal.

student said...

apparently you only make the news when you fit the script. Sorry you missed your 15 seconds of fame. Perhaps another time.

Kao said...

I would have loved to see you on TV! I watched a news show the other day that explained that 9 minutes of Sponge Bob was all you need to make a kid go spastic....or something like that. My TV lost volume for a little bit...old TV I watch while running....

Lynn said...

Hooray for the non-hovering parent! Chickens aren't the only thing that should be free-range.

Now I'm going to go turn Sponge Bob off...