Scooter safari

We belong to the Oakland Zoo. The family membership is like ninety bucks for a year, which is a bargain when you have a preschooler, because preschoolers want to go to the zoo all the time.

Except last weekend for some reason, the kid didn't want to go to the zoo. I think it's because he wanted to ride his Spiderman scooter, which his grandma gave him for Christmas.

So Jeffrey suggested Lake Chabot, which is this man-made lake out there in San Leandro with this paved path around it, and we went there, and the kid was happy.

See, I think sometimes we try too hard with kids. We think we have to show them big spectacular animals all the time, but the kids don't care. One animal's as good as another. He rode his scooter, he petted some dogs, he saw some ducks. He was happy.

And of course there's a dam at Lake Chabot, so Nick got to learn that "dam" is not a bad word. Rather unexpectedly, this experience is bringing up a lot of questions about other bad words.

"Yes, that one's always a bad word, son. We don't say that one… Yeah, that one too… He did? Yeah, well, I guess Uncle Jeffrey needs to watch his language when he's driving, huh?"

Kurt "big daddy" True
25 january 2008