Today was a very exciting day, not only was it Amelia’s first trip to the zoo but it was also the day I finally met up with a great Insta friend and fellow new mummy Emily (@this.incredible.life) and her little girl Willow.
Willow is two days older than Amelia and its been so lovely to see them both grow and develop, it feels like they hit their milestones within days of each other and from all the countless messaging between myself and Emily it seems they are like two peas in a pod so I couldn’t wait to finally meet up and have a proper chat in person.
We opted to take the girls to the zoo, as they get older and they become more aware and curious we thought it would be a great chance for them to look at some new exotic animals for the first time. It was such a lovely day, the weather was great for walking. Not too hot but not cold either, I hate the zoo on boiling hot days. Not only are you exhausted walking round but all the animals are hot and hiding in the shade too. At least on an overcast day the animals are out and about for us to see.
My highlight animal is always the tiger, they’re my all time favourite animal. There’s just something magical about them and they’re so beautiful. Delighted to get to see four of them today, one was even playing with a tyre and appeared to be enjoying himself.
I think though the best animal today was one of the Leopards, it was sat by the window of it’s enclosure trying to eat a small child on the other side.
This doesn’t sound great I’ll admit, it was jumping up at the glass and trying to bite. Of course the child was perfectly safe but it make for great viewing of the big cat, normally they’re so illusive and hidden but it was right there in front of us. Brilliant.
I decided to give baby wearing another try too, it just seemed so much easier than having to lift her out of the pram to see the animals every time we stopped. I have to say, having the pram to push as well really helped, it game me something to support the additional weight, it helped me to walk easier and took a lot of the pressure off my lower back. Plus it carried all the gear leaving my hands free to push the pram and attend to Amelia. I am really pleased with how much easier I found it, I was able to carry her for about 3 hours with a break for lunch and it was lovely. I thought she might sleep on my chest but she was just too busy looking at everything for that.
We introduced the babies to lots of different animals today, we saw; penguins, giraffes, rhinos, antelope, dear, zebras, warthogs, monkeys, and of course the big cats.
Emily and I had a great chat over lunch, it was so lovely to talk about the girls and how wonderful we think they are (naturally we are biased) but we also talked quite in depth about our birth experiences and the first few weeks as new mums. It’s so refreshing to hear another opinion, another mums experience and it helps you to know that you weren’t alone in those first few weeks and every new mum goes through the same struggles. Of course it wasn’t all doom and gloom about birth, we both have our wonderful babies and we celebrated that too. It was like we had known each other for ages and I suppose we have, online, sharing messages and moments and struggles but having that face to face contact is so lovely.
After lunch we found a lovely spot for the girls to sit for a moment and get acquainted. This went better than I expected as Amelia has a tendency to get a little over excited with other babies and I’m sure she just wants to touch and hug them but it can get a bit smacky and scratchy but she was perfect. They checked each other out, had a little babble and some smiles and we did the typical mum thing and took a ton of photos of them together.
Rachel xx
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