Hi! Avery, here, long time no “talk”. Mommy and Daddy brought me to what they call a zoo for the first time ever, and it was full of awesome animals! Now that I’m back and an experienced zoo-goer, I wanted to share a few things to do at the zoo when you’re two.

You’ve probably seen many of the zoo animals in books and in the form of cute toys, but seeing the real deal is a completely different experience. Take, for example, turtles. Daddy has been surrounding me with turtle things my entire life, but seeing big ones I could sit on was turtley awesome!

I kept telling him to “Go”, but he just sat there. Weak……They may not be as exciting as a trip to the trampoline park, but sitting on a tortoise should be on every toddler’s pail list. Just make sure to never look at your mommy and/or daddy when as they shout “Look at the camera and smile!” for the thousandth time. And that’s just on the lackluster turtle.

His friends just stood off in the distance watching, guess they don’t like giving toddler rides. Or maybe they were arguing over who gets to be Michelangelo.

Even turtle tantrums lack excitement. I could teach them a thing or two in that department.

Another thing you must do is pet a snake. Daddy wouldn’t shut-up about snakes, and after dragging us through all of the reptiles, he brought me to pet this snake that turned out to be pretty cool. I’d even do it again.

Dad says we should get a pet snake, but Mom says no. Haven’t heard much after that…..

The zoo is filled with all kinds of birds throughout the area. The first ones I spotted were these crazy pink birds just standing in water. Some were even on one leg!

If you can, get out of the stroller for a closer look at the birds who were all ready to flamingle. They were all squawking about something, probably the awesome curls in my hair.

What you should NOT get out of the stroller for is a closer look at this guy…..a crocodile.

They look much happier in the books and toys I have, but this guy was not up for playing. I was okay with keeping strapped in my stroller to look at the sleepy swamp dweller. Petting snakes is one thing, but I wouldn’t touch a crocodile with a 10 foot pool noodle.

What I do suggest petting are the animals in the petting zoo. As the name implies, it’s like a mini zoo within the zoo where you get to pet animals. Mommy held me as I pet the wet nose of a calf which felt a lot like our fat cat’s nose, only much bigger.. I’m just glad he wasn’t in a bad moo-d.

Next up was a baby goat who was far from lively. No need for help to pet him, I just reached through the fence and felt his slightly coarse white hair. Yeah, when you’re two, you can be a little more independent.

The petting zoo was a neat experience, but unless they add more animals, disco lights, or both, I could probably just skip this section next time.

Going to the zoo means a lot of walking, and even though we had a stroller, I wanted to prove that I can walk just fine on my own. But I have daddy trained pretty well and made sure he pushed the stroller just in case I was ready to climb back in. Which I did, a lot, and something I suggest all my peers do too. Just keep our parents in check.

Mommy has him trained too. When I decided to climb in, we both celebrated our daddy training success by raising our arms high in the sky and making him take our picture.

This is something no to be contained only for zoo visits, do it anywhere all the time!

Another zoo transportation option is on your parent’s shoulders. I made frequent use of taking a ride on daddy’s shoulders to get a better view of animals and help pick bugs out of his hair.

As it turned out, there were no gross bugs wandering around on his head. This made me very happy!

The giant cats in the background looked pretty cool, but they must’ve been sleepy since they were all lion around.

Much like those sleepy cats, daddy’s shoulders get uncomfortable after a while, so I exercised my other option; Mommy! We enjoyed watching the elephants together, they were my Mom’s favorite zoo animal.

Did you know elephants like to play too? We saw a baby elephant trying to get it’s mommy to play with a giant log.

It made me think of all the fun I have playing with my Mommy, which put me in deep thought mode for a minute.

So, when it comes to transportation at the zoo, make use of your mommy and daddy when/if possible. I will, however, suggest you try your hardest to choose only one at a time. It seems every time we are all together, they try to take family selfies, which I’m not too fond of…..ever.

At one point, we stumbled on this well camouflaged animal that looked like a miniature bearded horse with horns. He just stood there, keeping still and looking like he didn’t even know how it goat there.

One of my favorite parts of the entire visit to the zoo was the giant bird area. There were hundreds of birds flying around the area, and you could feed them with a stick covered in seeds. Daddy held me on his shoulders as I held a stick that daddy got for me (I’ve got the training down!) and fed the birds.

Some birds even landed on the stick I was holding!

If nothing else, definitely do this when you’re at the zoo! It’s even worth having your parents try to take MORE selfies.

After the bird excitement, I started turning on my crazy toddler mode (i.e. naptime) which had Mommy and Daddy rushing through the zoo to get back to our car. Back at the front, we got to see a gorilla with her baby.

I wonder if the gorilla mommy would let her kid come to the trampoline park with me sometime. They sure do look like they’d have fun jumping!

My parents said I can choose one souvenir to remember my first trip to the Fort Worth Zoo, so we made a quick stop at the shop conveniently located on the way out. I had to stay in the stroller as mommy and daddy waved toys in my face. I wasn’t sure if I was picking the toy or they were, but one thing’s for sure, I did NOT want the spider dad showed me.

My dad, I mean I, ended up choosing a lanky rubber snake despite Mommy’s attempts to get me to ask for a cute owl or bear hand puppet. In retrospect, I don’t know why I said I wanted the snake instead of a fuzzy animal puppet, but “Raps” (the name of my dad’s late pet milk snake) is proving pretty fun to play with.

No matter what you choose to do at the zoo when you’re two or ninety-two, just seeing all of the amazing animals will be the highlight of the trip. At the zoo, you get to see creatures found all over the world all in one big area. Pretty cool if you ask me. Grab your parents and find one near you. I can’t wait until I’m older and can appreciate all of the wild-life even more!