Loolyville, Part 3

Well ... the day seemed to start off so well (more about that later). No, we didn't attend the world-record setting bucket of chicken in downtown Louisville. Today was Louisville Zoo day. We recently noticed that Jefferson calls any statue "frozen." We saw a sculpture of some roller-skating kids at a mall and Jefferson said: "Hey dad. Look at those frozen kids." Here he is riding a frozen tortoise.









Here he is wrestling a frozen alligator.









Jefferson is attacked by Zombie-Mom (note: frozen).









This kindly creature was certainly friendly with all the kids waving and smiling at it. None of the kids seemed aware that it was likely calmly planning to come through the glass and rip arms and legs out of sockets. Happy day!












Today at the zoo Jefferson maintained two identities: his usual rakish self and that of a monkey. Monkey ...












... Jefferson ...












...???...












We stopped at the first Illinois rest area on the trip home today. A couple of things caught my eye. One, the doors of the stalls in the men's room only came about two-thirds the way up. So anyone walking by could totally check out your business. Word from Mom was the doors in the women's room went all the way up. The second thing was the Illinois State Parks brochure pictured below. "Oh, Ranger!" Huh? Is that "Oh, Ranger, you're incorrigible!"? Or is it "Oh, Ranger, you macho man, you!"? Weird, either way.









Now back to the near disaster. If you've spent any time around Jefferson, you are likely to have encountered P. P is one of Jefferson's baby blankets. When he was just starting to talk, he called his pacifier "Puh" and his blanket "P." P and Puh. Anyway, we packed up at the hotel and left for the zoo, not realizing that we had forgotten P. We called the hotel and, of course, they hadn't found P. We went back to the hotel to ask in person, they took our information and claimed they contact us. We figured P was gone for good. It's the last item from his baby stuff to which he maintains any attachment. And quite frankly, we're more attached to it than he is. We ate lunch, did a tiny bit of shopping and returned to the car to find a message on my phone. They'd found P. This was taken tonight, back at home with our creature comforts. P...












One last thing. Tonight at Walmart I told Jefferson he could pick a car. Every car he picked up was his favorite for 3 seconds, each one replaced by the new favorite. I directed him to the mystery car. I told him that what was inside was a great surprise. You won't know until you open it. I never thought he'd go for it. I couldn't have been more shocked when he did. He carried it around the store and couldn't wait to open it. It turned out to be a VW bug with checkerboard flames and a big #5 painted on the side. Honestly, it was quite lame. Later at Panera he'd given each of us a car. We were all talking about why we liked the car we had. I liked mine because of the color. Mom liked hers because of the metallic shiny paint. Jefferson said: "Dad, you know why I like mine?" Me: "Why, buddy?" Jefferson: "Because you picked it for me." I love that monkey boy.