Inja Foyer

"Nooo, I can't want to take a nap! I need to be inja foyer!"

It's not uncommon for Kaitlyn to protest... well, anything, really. She's really very contrary. And very creative. You should hear some of her plans for swapping toys with Kourey, and Kourey getting Kaitlyn's detained toys back, and then swapping back. But today it was naptime being protested, and the reason was "inja foyer".

"You need to be in the foyer?" I asked, continuing as she nodded her head solemnly, "No, you need to be in bed sleeping."

"I need to be seeing inja foyer like Daddy does!"

Seeing "inja foyer"? Daddy?

Lightbulb moment: she was talking about Ninja Warrior, a Japanese competition show that apparently she and Keith watch much more than I realized.

She wants to be "a inja foyer".

Sigh.

Guess who's got a tooth?

Well, it's really just a little razor that you feel when you rub your finger on her gums, but she works it out on the biter biscuit!

Metro Richmond Zoo

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Yesterday Kaitlyn, Kourey and Katherine met up with Kaitlyn's best friend from church, her mom and baby brother, and jaunted up to the Metro Richmond Zoo.

As much as I love the zoo, I've never been to this one, as I am a zoo snob. I have high standards because I grew up with the NC Zoo so close - it may not a big name, national level zoo, but I think in many ways it's better than others I've been to.

So a private zoo a block off of Hull Street - behind an elementary school at that - and named Metro Richmond Zoo, well... let's say my expectations were low. But I really enjoyed it! The smallness of the zoo made it feel really accessible for the kids, and I think I enjoyed hand-feeding the giraffes even more than they did (especially since they didn't hand feed the giraffe, they just held out cups for the giraffes to eat out of with their purple, prehensile tongues).

Kaitlyn stayed true to her peculiar predilections by being most entranced by the two sloths that hung alongside of scarily big bats in the nocturnal house. She refers to them as "two monkeys in a tunnel." It took me a while to figure out that's what she meant. She loved all of the primates (and all of them, from gibbon to chimpanzee to spider monkey, were just plain "MOWN-keys!"), in no small part because "monkeys are daddy's favorite."

We'll definitely be going back - anyone want to come with us?

Mommy, why...?

"Mommy, why are the gentlemen naked?"

I thought it would be years before such a question came up. And, if I had thought about it, I would expect it to be in a situation like when men wear too small bathing suits at King's Dominion (and really, would expect her to ask it about "ladies", strong on the quotation marks) or... actually, I can't even think of anything else. It's just that far off the radar.

Which is why I was fully unprepared for it as we were leaving the house to go to the grocery store. We weren't even out of the door yet! And she asked it in typical three-year-old fashion, loudly and repetitively.

"Why, Mommy? Where are there clothes? Why can't they wear any clothes? Why are the gentlemen naked?"

Before you worry about streakers run rampant in the neighborhood, let me explain. Our next door neighbors are getting their house resided. The construction crew all decided to work shirtless. Shirtless isn't a word Kaitlyn uses. Lack of clothes = naked. No questions. She doesn't go barefoot; she has naked feet. Sleeveless shirts mean naked arms. She's very single minded about it.

And her mind wasn't going to be changed by my whispered "shhh! They're not naked! They're just not wearing shirts!"

"Yes they are naked!," she exclaimed in her "Auntie voice", "And why aren't they wearing shirts? Ohhh, do they need shirts? Goodbye, gentlemen! Goodbye!"