Dear daughter post #2, Bronx Zoo

This post is dedicated to my baby daddy! Happy Father's day. Dave asked me last week if I was ever going to blog again. Well, I mentioned how hard it was to blog if it wasn't about the person I spend the most time with (other than him) so I've decided that I'll do a couple of these posts for memory safe keeping and go back to no blogging at all. I've also decided to show some pictures of my daughter but with her face partially hidden. She may or may not appreciate this when she's able to read one day. Since I'm a morbid person, this is what I am thinking now to justify sharing a glimpse of her on the internet. If something were to happen to me today (or any day now),  then these would be the only words she will see from mama about you to remember by! Then you will be thankful I wrote this after all versus embarrassing you. Hashtag time: #lifeisshort #shithappens #thankful

Actually, now I remember that we have been sending her emails which we will give her access to when she will appreciate it (post teen?) but it has been a while since I last wrote to her! This post will be sent to her as well. Phew xoxHappy Father's day!

Dear daughter,

You are almost 2.5 and I love you more and more every day.

I am at work and I am surrounded by your pictures yet I still look for more pictures of you on my phone whenever I get the chance.  Today is Monday and I'm looking at pictures of our weekend together. I try to capture you in as many pictures as possible because you are growing up so fast and I have a hard time savoring moments when I am with you because I'm thinking about a hundred random things (did you pee, did you eat, did you snack, did you nap, did you put sunscreen, did we bring back up clothes...). As I scroll through my albums, week after week, you look just a little bit different and it's always bittersweet to say goodbye to yesterday's you. Every day you pop a new word and I am so impressed by every little thing you learn and do. Yesterday, I put you in Time Out but when I gave you the ultimatum to continue your Time Out or leave but get no cake, you choose to go back into Time Out so you can get a piece of cake. I was surprised you understood me but I shouldn't have been. You know way more than I give you credit for. When you came out, you refused the cake and ate banana instead. You just keep surprising us in good and bad ways.

This weekend, we brought you to the Bronx zoo and I hope you got something out of seeing the animals you read about, in real life. You don't know now but some of these animals are incredibly endangered and you may or may not have the chance to ever see them in the wild one day. In fact, mommy and daddy has not seen most of the animals we met at the zoo in real life. We are seriously worried about the fate of our planet.

We saw a lot of cool rare animals such as a sloth, rhinos, ferrec fox, an ant eater, spider monkeys, a kiwi bird!, flamingos, a snow leopard, pelicans and lots more. Basically every animal we love to watch on Planet Earth.

One memorable event was when we said Goodbye to the brown bears. You said "Bye bye Brown Bear" and continued "Brown Bear , What do you see.."

Rhinocerus pee pee, splash,  water, niao niao -you said when you saw the rhino pee

Daddy and mommy did have the great opportunity to travel to South America to see penguins in Punto Tombo and also see flamingos in the wild. We've also seen real puffins in Iceland which was exciting. We hope for you to have the same adventures when you grow up. We hope that all the glaciers will stick around long enough for you to hike them and of course, see as many animals in the wild as possible.  It saddened me that the only way for us to see these exquisite animals are in a zoo but it also reminded me how important it is for us to protect them in the wild by doing our part every day.

I think you had a pretty good day at the zoo. During lunch time, you turned to me and said " Mommy, I like the zoo". Although I was convinced it was because we were letting you munch on french fries and hot dogs, I hope deep inside it is because you were really have a nice time with us.

Your curiosity is so precious to me. I love to see the world through your eyes even though it means the chickens and ducks from the children's zoo made you most excited.