Zoologisches Museum der Universität Zürich

Joey and I had a little taste of home this morning.  A few days ago I noticed a woman posting on an expat website that she’d be moving to town from Seattle, of all places, with her husband starting at Google here, so I wrote to say hello.  She and her sweet infant stopped by this morning, taking a break on their house-hunting, and while Joey stared adoringly at the baby, I got to have a nice long talk in English. So refreshing!

We also had another visit from our curmudgeonly superintendent who stopped by to fix some things around the house. I don’t know that my German is improving, but I’m getting better at charades by the day, I assure you.

Wednesdays for Ella mean swimming just about all morning and no school in the afternoon, so she came home hungry and happy.  She said that she and her class have to run the entire way to the pool (several blocks), which is a sight I must arrange to see some time.  After she finished up her homework and everyone ate,

we took a bus across town to the University of Zürich to visit their Museum of Zoology.

The kids got tired of tic-tac-toe, and so they improvised
a game of Connect-Four on the long bus ride.

At the University campus

Unfortunately, Joey fell asleep within minutes of leaving the house, and he stayed asleep until we got home.  He and I will have to repeat this excursion some morning.


I’d read that this particular museum is fun for children, and that was certainly true for mine. I remember taking Alex to the Field Museum when he was two: he went absolutely wild there looking at all of the animal dioramas. I suppose I can see the appeal for a kid, being able to get so very close to the animals.  They weren’t troubled in the least that the animals were stuffed.

And did you know there's a World Taxidermy Championship?
Me neither.  But here's the winning entry.

I believe this one is a model of a gian sloth ("Riesenfaultier")

They had had so much fun doing their little photo safari on Monday that I decided to do that again and gave them a list of animals to search for.  They had just as much fun this time, but they would have enjoyed themselves regardless: they pored over the exhibits, trying to name the animals and laughing at the oddities.

They had some cute comments. One exhibit was of the leg bone and an egg of an elephant bird, and they were exclaiming over the size.  I asked them if they’d ever heard of an elephant bird, and Alex piped up “Of course. From Horton Hatches an Egg.” Similarly, I pointed out a dingo to them, and Alex said “Oh, I know him. He’s in my favorite book.” (Trucks and Cars and Things that Go)

Alex and that naughty dingo.  (I kept Joey far away.)

Although the boys love zoos, Ella usually isn’t particularly interested when we visit, but she was full of questions and comments today.  It makes me wonder if maybe her poor eyesight is one of the reasons she got so bored and distracted at zoos.  Anyway, it was a great afternoon.

This is the exhibit that the kids told their dad about when we got home.
They laughed and laughed at the thought of wild Smurfs living in South America.

I paid for it this evening, though.  Sleeping Joey during the day means Wicked-Cranky Joey when he wakes up and Sleepless Joey at bedtime.  He cried all through bath, repeating, over and over, “I want to plaaaaaaay” and wrestled, red-faced, as we (scarcely) got him in his pajamas, while Dennis and I tried not to laugh.  This is all too familiar.  To think, it was only six years ago...

I’ll just keep repeating my mantra: his tenacity will serve him well.