A Day at the Zoo

Hot, humid, ugh...but not quite as humid as Uganda according to my husband who spent some time there several summers ago doing mission work with the Batwa Pygmies.  40% humidity, 87 degrees Faranheit...is that really a good day to go to the zoo?  But it was my husbands day off, so we drove across town to the zoo and we were totally amazed at how many other people thought Good Friday would be a great day to visit the zoo.  The zoo is a great escape for the stroller set with their mommies in tow. Children 2 and under are free; otherwise, it's $12 for children and $15 for adults, apparently my tax dollars are not enough to support the zoo.  Many changes have been made to the zoo, since I was a child. Dallas now has a rail system that stops at the Zoo, so the entrance to the zoo has changed to accomodate traffic from DART Rail.  A large carousel ride is close to the entrance and the lemur exhibit, no longer do you walk through the entrance and see the flamingos in their large pond.  I miss that.  The old zoo is to the right, the new zoo exhibits are to the left.  We went to see the Wilds of Africa which is not entirely visible from the ground, a monorail takes visitors through the Wilds of Africa and part of the Giants of the Savannah - I didn't know this until after we got home. But I don't know how the monorail supports strollers, especially strollers for twins.
We took the Gorilla Trail around the Wilds of Africa and only the Okapi were not cooperative in letting us view them. I could just make out one Okapi in the trees. The chimpanzees were lazing around...did I mention it was very hot and humid?  We watched them for awhile and were pleasantly surprised when we saw Ramona with her baby chimp,  Kona, coming out of the tall grasses to play on their gym.
The crocodiles and tortoises were sunning themselves, not in the same cage though.  We saw some Meerkats and a Klipspringer, too, the exhibits were right next to each other.  We had a very nice encounter with a gorilla who was cooling off in the shade near the Gorilla Conservation Research Center. He was just flopped out, scratching himself, not sure Nathaniel and Emma knew quite what to make of him.
After taking in the Gorilla Trail we headed over to the Giants of the Savannah.  Hot, thirsty and hungry we headed to the Serengeti Grill and were happily surprised to see a pride of lions lying right next to the glass wall of the Grill. Three females and one male lion resting in the shade.  The male lion (is that redundant?) was snoozing with his big head almost upside down, he woke up just as Emma was reaching out her hand to pat the glass and it scared her. She shrunk back into my legs. He didn't make a sound, just looked at her with his huge eyes. Wade said he had never been this close to lions before. When he had been in Uganda, he made a special side trip to see tree climbing lions, which he saw in an open roofed Land Cruiser.  One of the Land Cruisers had some trouble starting after the lion pride noticed the people and they wondered if they weren't going to become the lions next meal.  But that's another story.  We spent a lot of time gawking at the lions while we ate our burgers...perhaps they like lying next to the grill because it smells like dinner??? One wonders.
After we visited the lions, we made our way over to the Warthogs. But the real fun was at the Giraffe Feeding Station. Giraffes are really interesting creatures, still trying to figure out what the prominient bones are in the front of the giraffe. I think the shoulder bone sits closer to the neck. I can't make heads or tails of it and we missed the zoo keeper talk. Still a lovely, long necked animal...looking for treats. Nathaniel was especially fascinated with the giraffes and waved bye bye to them.
We missed seeing zebra, ostrich, rhinos and hippos. Mama and Daddy were exhausted pushing  babies around in the hot Texas weather. I'm hoping next time we can go in the cool morning, and sleep all afternoon when we get home.
When the babies woke up, we played with their new zoo puzzle I purchased at Target for about $4. Not as fancy as the Melissa and  Doug wooden sound farm puzzle but interesting and new to them.  The puzzle  has adult and juvenile animals: elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, and lions.  This afternoon, I picked up two books about  wild animals to add to their Easter baskets: Mommy Hugs by Anne Gutman and Georg Hallensleben and  From Head to Toe by Eric Carle.

Disappointment with Hearing Test

My son has Audiotory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder along with mild deafness in his right ear and more pronounced deafness in his left ear. He has been wearing hearing aids since he was six months old. We thought he was getting better, because we weren't able to discern much difference in his hearing when he wore them. When he was 6 months old, he would wake us up in the morning with his babbling.  He's been in speech therapy for about 6 months and showing improvment. He's making more sounds that actually seem like words. Today he told his speech therapist, Shannon, "Buh bye" and waved his hand as she left the room. We were all amazed. He talks so much more than his sister, who doesn't have a hearing impairment, so it's a bit disappointing to have a hearing test like he had this morning.
Funny, I thought he was getting better because he seemed to hear the same with or without his hearing aids in his ears. I didn't think that the reason his hearing was the same with or without aids was because he need more amplification. Why didn't I think of that? His last ABR (acoustical brain stem response) was markedly improved over his first one back in April. I thought his hearing was improving, but after I saw his test results I wonder how much he is not hearing.  He can hear speech sounds in his right ear but his left ear, that's a different story. So it looks like he is going to need another sedated ABR and more behavioral response hearing tests to determine what is going on in his noggin.
His audiologist at Callier Center for Communications said the next step is to turn up the amplification in his hearing aids and if that doesn't work we should consider a Cochlear Implant for his left ear.
Disappointing...
On the bright side, we caught his hearing impairment early. He is getting speech therapy and we provide a language rich environment for him at home. He has good  receptive and expressive  language skills. We are fortunate to live in Dallas with a very good medical school and the Callier Center. I'm also thankful my husband and I didn't take the advice of the first ENT we saw for him. We trusted our gut instincts and got help for Nathaniel sooner instead of waiting 6 months before we had him retested. By the time Nathaniel was 6 months old he had a MRI ruling out a audiotory nerve dysfunction, an ABR, and his first pair of hearing aids.  He's now 14 months old, we'll have to see what the next 6 months hold for him.