IEAS - Our magical day

The International Exotic Animal Sanctuary is a place I first heard about back in 1998.  I was dating someone who lived in a town nearby where the place is located.  It was established in 1988 as a home for big and small cats who came to them for a variety of reasons.  (We would find out more about these reasons on our tour).  We never ended up checking the place out, even though it was closer than we ever imagined to where he lived. Fast forward to about two years ago, when my friend Christi started sharing pics from their Facebook page.  Now the place had added bears and a few other exotic animals, and the pictures were delightful.  I finally "liked" them too, and realized I HAD to take a trip to see the place in person.  But kids had to be at least 7 to go on the tour.  Sighs and more waiting.  Gabriel turned 7 last year, and then the perfect opportunity:  I took my neice to see The Nutcracker for her Christmas present and needed somewhere special to take my nephew.  IEAS, here we come!!!!

We waited until a weekend in January, after all the holiday hullabulloo.  I drove Cade and Gabriel to Rhome, TX on a beautiful warmish and brightly sunny day.  I signed us in, and our other tourmates arrived.  A mother and daughter and a couple in their 60's.  That was it!  You are expected to make a donation if possible to take the tour.  As our guide, a female volunteer of 10 years, told us the rules, I had a little pang of worry about having Gabriel with me.  She told us to always follow her directions, there might be some habitats we would have to keep walking by based on the animals behavior.  No squatting down to take pictures, because the smaller you are, the more you resemble prey to these animals.  Here's my smallish 7-year-old looking up at me, and I realized he will look like a giant pork chop to most of them.  But I shook this off when I heard their safety record (NO animal attacks, EVER), and the various things they have in place in case of an attack:  fire extinguishers located all throughout the grounds to spray in an animal's face, and safe houses scattered everywhere for tour members in case of an escape during a tour.  But I did stress to G the importance of remembering no yelling or loud noises, no running or squatting down, and no getting off the path.  

Our guide opened the main gate and we all tensed up, immediately looking around for some life.  Imagine our delight when this energetic guy, Popeye the lemur, bounded out of his house to sprawl on the fence and tell us hello!  He LOVES people and tours, and about halfway through ours we heard him calling out for us to come back and see him some more, which we did on our way out.  He is a wonderful ice-breaker and eased the tension.  The guide said they think he needs a companion lemur for company!

The next habitat held Saber, a young white tiger who came to them mid-year last year.  She told us Saber was still a bit uneasy around tours and we needed to keep walking all the way around his area without stopping.  Cade and I still took pics while we were walking by.  Saber really made an impact on Cade, and he bought a framed picture of him to put up in his room for his souvenier.

These guys are hard to see, but they are Coatimundis, coatis for short (pronounced "kwa-tees").  They just acquired their second one last year.  Their names are Mork and Mindy, and they are native to Central and South America and closely related to raccoons.  They have an anteater type nose that will tilt 60 degrees up when they get a drink of water.  

This cute girl is Chewy, a grizzly cub that just this month turned a year old.  She just came also last year and is spirited and full of life.  She watched us and seemed to want to get our attention (as if she had to try!),  She played with her Christmas tree and balls, and stole all of our hearts.  Especially Gabriel's, who ended up getting a stuffed grizzly for his souvenier that he named Chewy.  

At this point we also saw our first Bengal tiger, but I could never get a good shot of her.  Most of their big cats are elderly when they get them and have developed arthritis and other bone or joint problems.  Their habitats are purposely not very big so they won't walk or run very far.  

We entered into the main bear area through some large gates and were told that it is a myth that bears hibernate in the winter.  There are some true hibernating species, where they actually sleep all winter, but bears are not one of them.  They actually go into a state of "torpor", their metabolism slows, they sleep 1-2 days at a time, and eat less.  But they come out to enjoy warm, sunny days and our guide had hope we would see some out and about enjoying the sun.

And she was right!  There was this guy in the tree. one lounging on her back with one eye open watching us, and another HUGE black bear lumbering along the fence line too far away for a picture.  Our guide told us that black bears actually come in a variety of colors, including cinammon, which made us wonder how you tell the difference between brown and black bears.  These were bears that have been at the sanctuary awhile.  While we were walking past, we noticed a small domestic cat walking around inside the bear habitat.  Our guide said that since the bears are well fed they don't pay any attention to her.  

It was then that our guide told us the story, and proudly showed us the new habitat, for their 11 newest bear members.  These bears had been living in South Carolina as a road side attraction.  They lived in small concrete pits, having just enough room to pace back and forth, never aloud to leave the pits.  Their only taste of outdoors was a small circle at the top of their pit where people would pay to throw food down to them.  IEAS and many animal groups pulled together for years and finally won custody of the bears last June, but they only had 90 days to build a habitat.  An anonymous donor from California, who had been trying to free the bears for years also, gave them $450,000.  They had a crew working round the clock and finished it in 75 days.  Each bear now has a living area with a man-made den, feeding area and water tub (for those brutal Texas summer days), along with an acre of land to explore.  How wonderful is that?  Some of them have had a hard time getting used to the freedom, and still pace back and forth when they get agitated.  But IEAS recently shared some video on Facebook of two of the bears who had no trouble adjusting to this new life, one of which had her instincts pop in and dug out her first den herself this past fall.  I didn't take pics during this time.  I was pretty overwhelmed about hearing that story and just wanted to enjoy seeing those bears living happier lives.

When an animal arrives at the sanctuary, most of the time he or she isn't too fond of humans (with good reason).  We heard some terrible stories about how some residents got there.  There was the tiger that got left in a garage with no food or water when his owner had to move and had no papers for the animal.   There was a circus who had come through a nearby town, called IEAS and said if they didn't take their white tiger that day (he had recently stopped performing for the crowds), they were going to shoot him and make him into a rug.  There was the lioness who as a cub was living with a family with small children.  When the mom next door found out, she took it upon herself not to call authorities, but to shoot the animal herself!  Luckily she was a bad shot and the lioness only lost a toe.  The tour makes you realize both the worst and best human qualities, because with every horror story she told us, she also had one about people donating money or time to the sanctuary, or about local businesses like Walmart and Kroger donating all kinds of food every single day.  Also, on staff is an animal behaviorist who has developed an Emotional Enrichment program for each animal based on their history.  The volunteers help, by just sitting with and talking and reading to their animal.  They spend time with them weekly, until the animal begins to trust humans again.

  

My cute tourmates.

This is Shauna, the lioness who got her toe shot off.  She is much older now, but still playful.  Shauna is also the only animal who tidies up her area every day, gathering up all her toys and placing them in the corner.  

Sapphire, the female cougar.  Look at those muscles!  Mountain lions, cougars and pumas are all the same animal, just called different things based on where you live in the country. 

THIS handsome face is really the reason I finally made myself see the place in person, along with the Cade reason.  This is Odin, newly arrived member.  These pics were taken 3 - 4 months ago.  He and Saber, the white tiger, arrived together at IEAS from Florida, where it is legal to keep cubs for photo shoots with people until they turn six months old.  IEAS is fighting to get that law changed, needless to say.  But there is something about this face that just charmed me.  I knew I had to see him in person.   When we signed in we were asked if we had a favorite, and I said that even though they are all special, I really liked Odin.  They replied that he has become very popular.  Easy to see why!

So this was Odin on our tour.  He has doubled in size already since arriving.  He LOVES tours and poses like this all the time.  He had a mentor, an older male lion named Ron whose habitat was next door, teaching him how to be a lion.  But sadly, Ron just passed away the week before our tour.  So Odin is the only male lion now.  His mane is starting to come in.  I can't wait to watch him grow up!

This is also hard to see, but there is a white tiger at the corner of her habitat.  Her name is Karen, and when we were done taking pics of Odin the guide said that Karen was stalking us.  Huh?  And to go ahead and walk over, but if she got up and started pacing we would have to move on.  Well, I got one picture and then Gabriel and I sashayed on out of the way.  "Stalking" is not a good word to hear while walking by with my little pork chop.  She never moved, by the way, which somehow made me more uneasy.

We learned some heartbreaking things about white tigers.  None of them are pure bred, the original white tiger was a pure white Bengal  with no stripes that was bred with a Siberian tiger in India.  All white tigers are related.  The white fur is a double recessive gene, which will only come out by inbreeding, brother with sister or father to daughter etc.   When the cubs are born, they are very rarely white, and they all have several sad side effects from the inbreeding:  crossed eyes, cleft palates, club feet, spinal deformities, and defective organs, including congenital heart disease.  The cubs without white fur are "throw aways", having all the defects but not the money-making ability of white fur.  So, so sad.  There is a ban on breeding them now, but of course greedy people still try to do it.  

The Director and Curator of IEAS are married, and live on site with their small son and a dog in a heavily fenced in area right at the front of the property.  I would be more than a bit nervous raising a child in this environment, but like I said they seem to really have the safety thing down (but still, you never know).   The staff is composed of volunteers and 8 interns who also live in barracks onsite.  They are one of the few places that offer food and rooms, and even cars to the interns.  Every time there is an intern opening they receive over 200 applications!  They come from all over the country, and there was a current intern from Finland.  There is a big map posted that shows where all their interns have gone on to work.  Apparantly it is a really good place to have on your resume, since they are accredited by the AZA (Association of  Zoos and Aquariums).  They also have a full-time vet on staff and a quarantine area for new animals and for the animals that get sick.  They had 8 tigers in the quarantine area the day of our tour.  

We were shown the kitchens on our tour, which was really cool.  They have everyone's diet carefully written out on a huge dry-erase board, complete with measurements and supplements.  As I mentioned before, Walmart, Kroger, and a produce market nearby donate all their unsold fruit, vegetables, meat and sweet breads (for the bears).  I was pleasantly surprised by this.  Also by each cats' name is written either B or NB, which puzzled me.  Then our guide pointed out some very bent stainless steel bowls with teeth marks through them that they keep to show tours.  Some cats are B (food in bowl), and the ones who demolished their bowls the first time they were served are NB and get their food dumped on the ground.

The biggest surprise of my day came when we walked up to Noel's habitat.  He is a Siberian tiger that has been with IEAS for almost 20 years, coming to them during Christmas time in 1995.  Hence his name.  The pics above were some I pulled from their website.  I don't remember seeing him before our tour day.

The guide said he usually stays in his den and doesn't come out for tours very often.  But here he came, and plopped down right next to the fence for a photo-op!  He is majestic, to say the least.  And has a playful side about him.  There is a dead tree stretched horizontally across his area and he loves to straddle it, lounging in the sun.  That is personality!   I'm seriously considering a one-day adoption of him, so I can go and sit with him during Emotional Enrichment time.

What an amazing day, and what an amazing place.  I can't wait to go back.  Sadly we can't take Jojo for a few more years, but I'm ok with that.  I was really nervous a couple of times even with Gabriel.  If Joel had been with us I would have ended up in the hospital!  I totally understand that rule.  We want to go back in early summer and take my parents.  I think we will turn it into a Father's Day celebration.

Loss of innocence

Gabriel watched his first EVER PG-13 movie on New Year's Eve with us.  Jurassic Park proved to be a really good choice for this, since he only wanted to cover up his eyes once or twice during the movie.  He asked questions, and seemed ok with even the scarier parts.  I stil get chills during that kitchen scene when those raptors are hunting the kids.  It's just plain scary!!!

He came home from school yesterday and excitedly told me that a classmate of his told him that The Amazing Spiderman 2 is coming out, and I said, "But you haven't seen the first one.", and he sadly shook his head, "Nope".  I think he is ready to start watching some superhero movies, as long as one of us watches with him in case he has questions.  Our problem is that Joel wants to do everything Ba-Ba does.  We lucked out on NYE.  We watched The Muppet Movie first, and Joel fell asleep within minutes of Jurassic Park starting.  I know we could just tell Jojo he has to go to bed and Gabriel can stay up.  But that is easier said than done.  I think we'd have a hard time getting him to stay in bed, and I really don't want to get into a power struggle with that one.  It's not a safe bet that I will win.  So we're considering doing this double feature method more often.  I don't even know if G is interested in seeing The Avengers or Batman or any of those movies, but I hate the thought of his friends at school all talking about them and he has no idea what they're talking about.  Why this bothers me I have no idea.  I vowed I would never succumb to parental or friend peer pressure.  But bother me it does, a little.

I know we have sheltered Gabriel somewhat up to this point.  He still doesn't watch TV with commercials.  We don't ever watch the news, so he has no "bigger picture" of what goes on in the world.  I don't want to scare him half to death, but I do think it's time to let him know there are some sad and sometimes scary things that happen in the world.  And we can talk about them.  But once again, I run into the Jojo problem - I don't think he is ready to see a newscast, the way they are filled with pretty horrific stuff these days.  Maybe Joel can have his Ipad time in the other room while Gabriel and I watch, or something.

It freaks me out how mature and big this boy is getting.  But look at that face.  That face is so sweet and innocent.  I don't want to mess that up!

Wall-E

Anyone who knows me knows that I will go on and on about why I love the Pixar films.  They tell great stories with great characters, but there is always so much going on beneath the surface of the film that I must have several viewings before all the layers begin to show themselves.

When WALL-E came out in 2008 I had little interest.  I knew it had something to do with robots, which to me meant futuristic, which meant I did not think it was for me.  But then we bought the boys a used copy in 2012.  Even then it took them watching it a couple of times before my interest peaked and I sat down to watch the whole thing.

First impression was, "Wow!  This is environmental and totally up my alley!", and "What a charming love story between WALL-E and Eve, ",  charmed as I was by the sweet homage to movie musicals with songs from Hello, Dolly!".  I couldn't believe it had not been on my radar.  I felt like the movie was made just for me, even down to the Peter Gabriel closing credits song.

But then I watched a couple of more times.  And some of the movie's other true-to-life layers hit me:  How corporate sponsorship is taking over EVERYTHING, and the way advertising tries to shove stuff down your throat that you don't really need, and the black humor about The Carts the humans travel around in, and being too out of shape to get themselves back in one if they happen to fall out.  Have you seen how many real life Wal Mart customers use those carts?

Then a few more viewings and the true poetry of WALL-E showed itself.  When the current captain of the ginormous spaceship that all humans have been living on for 800+ years is shown the pictures of Earth, something awakens in him.  Perhaps it is a connection to that soil we also call "earth".  Perhaps it is a longing to breath fresh air created by plants that have grown tall in the warm sun.  But the MOST poignant moment in the movie is when the captain is told (by an evil robot) that the only way humans can survive is if they stay on the ship.  He yells, "But I don't want to survive.  I want to LIVE!!!!!"   To me, there is nothing so inherently human as that will, that shear force that drives us to do almost inhuman things to keep going.

I am big believer in science and fact.  I question things I learned about the creation of earth and most other stories from the Bible.  There are scientific reasons behind the things once thought of as miracles.  But just because I am a big believer of science, that doesn't mean I have stopped believing in some type of higher power.  There are two things that keep me believing in God as creator of miracles:  The miracle of our beautiful planet, and that unstoppable drive of the human heart.  There is no way that human feature is not God-given, when you consider what we are made out of and where we have evolved from.

The last time I watched WALL-E I caught the very end of the movie for the first time, right before those credits roll.  The love song from "Hello, Dolly!" is just playing away, and I guess with my previous viewings I had already hopped up to do something else, assuming that the song is playing for WALL-E and Eve, finally together.  But no.  The people are all coming out of the ship, breathing the fresh air for the first time in their lives, and the camera pans out farther and farther, until all we see is our little planet.  Our beautiful blue Earth, in all of its diverse, life-giving glory.  That's the real love story in WALL-E.  The one between we humans and our miraculous planet that keeps us alive.  And when I think about all of the things, all of the science, that had to come together to give us this gift, my belief in God as protector, as creator of miracles, just swells out of me.

Joel is 4!

2nd-born kids have it easy for some things, tough for others.  2nd-born kids born close to Christmas have the handicap of parents that have run out of money after the school year has started, Gabriel's birthday, halloween, and early Christmas shopping.  Joel really doesn't have any friends his own age yet (except for Jaxon at school, and honestly I do NOT like his parents one bit - how selfish!)

So, when Joel's birthday rolls around, we struggle to think of something special to do for him without spending a boat load of money.  On his actual birthday we went to see "Frozen" at a Movie Grill place where we could eat and watch the movie.  Jojo thought that was pretty cool!  Instead of a party, we decided to take Joel, G, and cousins to Lego Land for an afternoon, then meet back up at our house with grandparents, aunts and uncles for pizza and cake.  One cool thing about Jav's sister getting married is that Joel and Gabriel now have two more cousins - Lizzie and Grace.  Lizzie just turned 12 and loves doing stuff with the boys.  Grace is a senior this year so we don't get to see as much of her.

The weekend we planned for was the 1st full weekend in December, since Thanksgiving fell so late in November this year.  Well, Mother Nature had other ideas.  The ice started falling, and falling, and falling, and the temps kept dropping, and dropping and dropping.  I had ordered the tickets ahead of time, and called in a panic to find out what their policy was in an ice storm.  I found out we had 14 days to use the tickets, thank God!  

So we moved the party out a week, and things started to fall apart again.  My brother was supposed to go to Lego land with us, but he was on call for work and had to be near a computer, so was out for the entire thing.  Cade was supposed to be with his mom the weekend of Ice Storm Zero, so was spending it with her - he was out too.  Then both grandmothers got sick, and at that point we decided to cancel the pizza and cake party afterwards.  We went to Lego Land with Macy and Aunt April, and met Aunt Sandy and Lizzie there.  Grapevine Mills Mall was an absolute zoo since no one had been able to get out to shop the weekend before, but we were prepared for that.  Lego Land was a blast!  Jojo was on sensory overload and just ran from place to place in wide-eyed wonder.  He even rode the bicycle ride, which I never thought he would do because he seemed afraid of heights.

We went home and Macy spent the night, and it was very special to have her with us for our much smaller pizza and cake party.  After he opened his presents, Jojo started a war with the party favors and we all had a silly, good time!  Even though I had felt really bad for him the way the plans fell apart, I have to say he didn't seem to notice.  It was a special day and he had a blast, which I'm very glad about.

Seeing "Frozen" and waiting for pizza.

The first ice cream cake.  

Lizzie and Macy racing the cars they built.  These two bonded at Lego Land!

Jojo and daddy on the bicycle ride!

Ice cream cake number two.   You can never have enough!!

Happy Birthday Jojo!  Wow - you're 4!!

Gabriel's 7th Birthday

I have really fallen behind on the blog posts.  I think my resolution this year (I don't usually make them) will be to post at least once a week.  

In September, we had a shindig at the house for Gabriel.  A Peanuts-themed party with a bouncy house in the backyard.  We had invited his whole class for the first time.  We had a little RSVP problem, and then it started raining an hour before the party.  And continued to rain until after everyone went home.  We at least took comfort in the fact that the kids would be dry in the bouncy house.  But it had a leak.  Party absolutely ruined, we thought.  But 4 kids showed up from his class, along with our old neighborhood friends and cousins, of course.  

And we forgot something.  Adults think getting wet is an icky problem.  Kids think getting wet is FUN.  At one point all the water that had pooled on top suddenly let loose inside and all the kids were dancing around in it.  It reminded me of one of those over-the-top nightclubs in Ibiza or somewhere where they would all of a sudden drop tons of water or foam on everyone dancing and they'd go nuts.  It was hilarious.  Gabriel had an absolute wet, soggy blast.  

I had so much food leftover we ate little appetizer-type food for dinner for a week.  

We're all crowded on the back porch trying to stay dry for cake.

Gabriel and his best friend, Kalilah.

Before and after of the poor pinata!  Cade took a few whacks after everyone else had some turns and did it in.

After all the guests went home, we were watching G open his gifts, and we heard a strange smacking sound.  Tucker was standing up on the table licking the icing border of what was left of the cake.  Yuck!

Road Trip (A little late)

This past summer we went to San Antonio for one night.  We had to meet Jav's cousin Tony to talk about the sale of some property Jav's parents own in Mexico.  Honestly, because this was supposed to happen the weekend after school started, I was NOT looking forward to this trip.  But by the time we left I was geared up to make this a Fun, Fast and Furious Texas Road Trip.  And where do you stop for breakfast when traveling South?  Kolaches in West!  Where to you stop for lunch?  DAIRY QUEEN!!!  (Where, as the sign says, they are Always Hiring Management!  I wonder why?)

We also decided to take an afternoon visit to Natural Bridge Caverns because we've been REALLY wanting to take the boys and we thought we'd have some time to kill.  It turns out, though, that we didn't anticipate how crowded it would be, and that we should have reserved a time.  We had to wait, sometimes in the hot July weather, for 2 hours before our group went down in the casve.

Jojo was NOT impressed with the caverns.  Gabriel thought they were awesome.

I did too.  Pretty amazing stuff.

We didn't make it to the River Walk until about 9pm.  I was amazed the boys were still awake.  Gabriel thought the tall tower was the greatest piece of architecture he'd ever seen.  We sat right on the water, but the food at our restaurant was awful.  The boys ended up feeding the ducks with their dinners.  One of the ducks (a very cheeky one indeed), jumped up on the platform where our table sat over the water.  Here he is waiting for another handout.  

We couldn't find our car in the parking garage for a half hour, which delayed us getting home even more.  This is what happened before we even had a chance to brush his teeth.

I'm glad I had an attitude adjustment and decided to embrace the spirit of a true Texas Road Trip.  It was super fun!!!

Meaningful

While driving to Weatherford to finally watch one of my nephew's Little League games, I re-fell in love with a song.  I know that some people just can't or won't take Sting seriously, but I've always thought he was a terrific singer/songwriter.  I had pulled out his CD Mercury Falling a couple of weeks ago and realized that although I hadn't listened to it for years, it was still one of my favorites.  So heading west, the song, "Let Your Soul be Your Pilot" was playing away.  It's a song I've listened to many times and found uplifting.  And I must admit, I am a total sucker for any pop song with a choir in it.  There are several of Sting's songs on his later CDs that are very religious and spiritual, which surprised me.  On this listen, though, the realization hit me that these are perfect words for my kids. Words about what I hope they will figure out.  Words to let them know that they are not alone in this world, even when it seems at its darkest.  And that last verse.  Whoa.  This is what I feel for them now, and maybe one day when I'm gone they will realize that is how God feels for them.  "Let your pain be my sorrow, let your tears be my tears too.  Let your courage be my model, that the north you find will be true."  Father Paul, our current priest, ends every homily the same way.  He says, (twice for emphasis) "Let's be thankful we're still here, and let us remember God cares very deeply about us."

Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot

When you're down and they're counting
When your secrets all found out
When your troubles take to mounting
When the map you have leads you to doubt
When there's no information
And the compass turns to nowhere that you know well

Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
He'll guide you well

When the doctors failed to heal you
When no medicine chest can make you well
When no counsel leads to comfort
When there are no more lies they can tell
No more useless information
And the compass spins
The compass spins between heaven and hell

Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
He'll guide you well

And your eyes turn towards the window pane
To the lights upon the hill
The distance seems so strange to you now
And the dark room seems so still

Let your pain be my sorrow
Let your tears be my tears too
Let your courage be my model
That the north you find will be true
When there's no information
And the compass turns to nowhere that you know well

Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
Let your soul guide you
Let your soul guide you upon your way...

The ethics of parenting

I have an acquaintance that I have not known long who mentioned in passing that she was "fascinated by Libertarians".  Based on her recent Facebook posts, I believe she may have moved herself right on into Full-Fledged Libertarianism since we had that conversation.  Along with some of the kooky (I think, at least), things she believes about government leadership, many of the articles and blogs she has posted on Facebook of late deal with how to raise your kids without grafting your own beliefs onto them.  In other words, parents should keep their own personal opinions on subjects to themselves, should let their kids figure stuff out, and develop their own ideas and opinions about things.

Well, I say the same thing to myself about this that I say when I read the kooky government posts:  good luck with all THAT!  Wouldn't it be worrisome that the morals and ethical beliefs they develop might come from school, friends, parents of freinds, pop culture, TV, or things they read online?  By God, it would be to me.  And don't we have the right, as parents, to explain the way we feel about certain things to our kids?  Isn't that just plain ole PARENTING in the truest sense of the word?

Let me get a little more specific.  I knew when I started to finally have kids that I would never be able to take them to the circus or rodeo.  The animals are held in captivity, in unnatural surroundings, and no matter how well the organization claims to treat them, I feel that forcing wild animals to perform for a human audience's entertainment is just wrong.

I have followed the good work of several animal organizations who allow former performing animals to "retire" to a life they were more naturally meant to lead.  The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee does not allow any contact between the public and the elephants living there, but they do have "Ele-cams" set up in various locations throughout the grounds, so that you can watch them playing with their toys or splashing in the pond.  The International Exoctic Animal Sanctuary in Boyd, TX takes in big cats, bears, and a few other types of animals.  Some of these were forced to perform for traveling circuses and flea markets.  Some just had to endure life as a side show, like the 11 bears IEAS recently won custody of from a closed down Bear Park in North Carolina, where they lived in concrete pits.  IEAS has behavioral specialists that work with their animals towards enrichment and rehabilitation.  They do allow planned tours of their grounds, but only small groups at a time, and no child younger than seven can visit.

The only reaction I had had to deal with so far was from other parents who were shocked that we do not let our kids experience these things.  They acted as if we were denying our kids some of the joys of childhood or something.  I have had so many negative reactions that recently when a coworker offered me six free tickets to the rodeos that are held every weekend in the Stockyards, I took them, even though they will not be used by us.  It was at this point I began to question whether or not it was right to keep my kids from these things based on my feelings and beliefs.

I knew I would have to face some challenging questions from Gabriel soon if he heard that one of his frends went to the circus or Stock Show.  Sure enough, the Shrine Circus recently rolled through Fort Worth and had billboards up and signs on bus stop benches.  He got really excited and asked if we could go, and I took my deep breath and tried my best to explain why we could not.  I told him about the Elephant Sanctuary, and that we need to start checking the Ele-cams.  I told him we would try to go to an animal-free circus, like Cirque De Soleil, some time in the near future.  He seemed to understand but be a little disappointed.  He always pointed out the signs when we passed them, and said a little wistfully, "The circus is still going on."  "Yes," I would answer, "and I hope you understand why we cannot go."

Then last week my friend Cathy posted on Facebook that she strongly suggested anyone who had ever been to SeaWorld watch the documentary that was airing on CNN that night, "Blackfish".  It uncovered the many accidents and near-death incidents there had been between orcas and the trainers at Sea World since the company started back in the 70's.  It also had interviews from former trainers about the fact that SeaWorld did not report these incidents to the public, or to newly-hired trainers.  There were marine biologists discussing how wrong it was to contain these huge animals in concrete pools, train them to perform, and expect them to stay aggression-free.  And how wrong it is to take the babies away from their moms at 4 months, when calves normally stay with their moms for two years in the wild.

I have been to SeaWorld three times, and had always thought about all of the good that SeaWorld has done for conservation while I was there.  This was not mentioned at all in the movie, which I initially thought was unfair.  No current employee of SeaWorld agreed to be interviewed for the film.  But the footage in the film speaks for itself.  I was shocked, horrified and saddened by what I saw and learned.  I came away realizing how similar the plight of the orcas is to the sad life of circus elephants, and was a little ashamed and dumbfounded that I had never made the connection before.  Orcas are beautiful creatures, and belong in open water.  Period.  Any attempt to contain them and make them perform is cruel and ultimately leads to tragedy.

So now we can mark "A trip to SeaWorld" off of our list of things we might do in the future.  And can you believe that the very day that "Blackfish" aired, Gabriel asked me when we were going back to SeaWorld?  (What a sense of humor you have, sometimes, God!)  I put off the real answer by telling him we could not afford a trip anytime soon.

Some might think we're hypocritical by taking them to the zoo and not these other places.  My reasoning behind that is that there is a big difference between seeing the animals in person, in all their majesty and greatness, compared to seeing them online or on paper.  If the boys see them in person, hopefully as they get older it will instill some sense of caring what happens to those animals in the wild.  Not that it doesn't upset me when I see ANY animal in captivity, but I've learned to harden myself at the zoo.

My husband, thankfully, is completely behind the decision.  He now has some very different opinions from the ones he had when we first met.  So I am beginning to feel a little more confident about our decision to avoid certain events.  The way I have to look at it is that I am teaching my children compassion for all of the earth's creatures from an early age, and how can that be a bad thing?

Baby shower

My cousin's oldest daughter recently turned 18.  I am not using names and am not sharing pics of her, since I didn't ask her if that would be ok.  Her short story:  She graduated a year early, and had plans to go to Tarleton and major in Veterinary Medicine.  She was a bit of a tomboy and had not had many boyfriends all throughout high school.  She thought she had met the love of her life last year, and got pregnant.  The plans changed.  The boyfriend turned out to be a jerk, and his entire family was unsupportive of her.  She has since moved in with her grandmother, and is fixing up a room for she and her baby boy.  She still has plans to attend Weatherford Junior College in the evenings, while her grandmother (who has worked in a day care with the 6-12 month old babies her entire adult life), watches Aiden.  

In a moment of craziness mixed in with love for my cousin, I offered to host a baby shower for her.  I think I was also influenced by an understanding that we all make stupid mistakes when we are young, and even though those mistakes can turn out to be wonderful, I wanted her to know that our family fully supports her and celebrates this baby.  I have never even co-hosted a baby shower.  But I have attended many, including my own.  The family immediately started thanking me, saying they had been looking for a place big enough to have it.  Oops.  Should've talked that over with my husband.  They wanted to have it the weekend before Gabriel's birthday.  We decided to postpone his party a week so I could have a weekend off to rest up in between the crazy.  But I really got lucky, because Little Momma's grandmother helped out so much that I was left with three main responsibilities:  Decorating, games and the food.  She took care of some decorations, all paper products, party favors and the cake.  

Little Momma wanted a jungle theme, and I found a zebra tablecloth that I knew I wanted to use.  I also thought about palm trees and rope for vines.  I had been wanting to get some new house plants anyway, and I found the two ponytail palms below on sale.  I also bought one big palm to sit on the floor somewhere around where the guest of honor was opening gifts.  My sweet dad came and helped me get the rope vines hung all around the table and the living room, and I wrapped green crepe ribbon around the rope.  I also bought several stuffed jumgle animals at Toys R Us that I thought were adorable, and that I gave to her to decorate the nursery after the shower.  I hung our Curious George monkeys from the vines.  I got a huge giraffe balloon to tie to Little Momma's chair.  The crowning touch on the decorations were the big bowls of bananas I put everywhere in the house, including the bathroom.  Of course, I realize that I probably got jungle and African savannah confused, but I don't care, I think it looked really cool.

I came up with 2 games, a celebrity baby name game and the Bag Guessing Game, showcased in the picture above in front of the mirror.  My boss has given around 30 baby showers, and this is the one game she's led in all of them.  Each bag is labeled with a letter of the baby's first and middle name.  Then, inside is something that starts with the corresponding letter and is an item for babies.  Whoever gets the most guesses right, wins the prize.

On the food, since this is the Most People Don't RSVP era we are living in, I decided to aim for 25-30 people (they had invited around 40).  Little Momma had been sending me food Pins from Pinterest that I saved in a big folder.  I decided on going with a watermelon bowl fruit salad, Skinny southwest chicken dip, caprese pasta salad, tortilla pinwheels with cream cheese, bacon, pesto and smoked turkey, chocolate covered strawberries and apple pie bites.  I am determined that from now on I will remember to take pictures of the food, because it all looked amazing in my opinion.  I worked my tail off Friday, then had help from Little Momma and her family with getting the fruit cut up for the watermelon bowl and making the tortilla pinwheels.  My cousin and I grew up together and spent around 7-8 years drifting farther and farther apart for various reasons.  Then we found each other on Facebook, and have been a part of each other's lives again ever since.  We were laughing and reminiscing in the kitchen before the shower started and having so much fun.  It's true that your cousins are your first closest friends

It turned out that out of the 40 people they invited, Little Momma had assured me that 10-15 were close family and would be showing up.  But that was all who came.  NONE of her friends showed.  I thought that was pretty lame, even if I do live 20 minutes or so from where she and her friends live.  But we still managed to have a really fun day.  And she felt special and loved by the 15 people there, so it was a success.  And Jav and I got to eat tortilla pinwheels in our lunches the entire next week.  Yum!