A zoo trip and prepositions

At the end of the winter break, my older sister Deb and I took our children on an outing to the Phoenix Zoo. Truthfully, we are frequent patrons of the zoo, we are just neglectful photographers.

Well, I am a neglectful photographer

on a regular basis.

So, for once I remembered to take out my camera and snap a few shots to prove that we do actually visit the zoo.

Here were the day's players:

Deb's oldest son Jacob, who is incapable of taking a picture without oozing photogenic talent. I think he was singing, "Hit me with your best shot" heavy-metal style.

Jacob, his sister Abby, and my Amelia still singing and now posing like rock stars. There were actually giraffes and ostriches and a smattering of other African animals to see behind them, but they wanted to sit on a rock and make air guitars first.

Jared, Deb's second son, who was confined to the stroller initially. This didn't last long.

Abby and Amelia doing what they call the "cute-girl pose".

Deb's baby Mark stayed in the stroller most of the time. He still managed to get sticky some how.

And my Dylan, who is totally two and knows it.

Prepostions Anyone?

OK. Now here's the preposition lesson. Many of you know that I taught high school English for eight years and am still known to pick up an English 101 class at the college or university on occasion. I think I can owe that career partly to my HIP teacher in elementary school. His name was Mr. Zabor and he taught us a preposition song to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."

(By the way, I have no idea what "HIP" actually stood for. )

(We told ourselves it meant "highly intelligent people.")

Here's the song:

"With, on, for, after,

at, by, in,

Against, instead, of,

near, between,

Beside, from, under,

down, below

Through, over, up,

according to

Around, across, beyond, about,

Before, behind, within, without.

Prepositions, everyone, when followed by a noun."

I think I wrote this down on an overhead transparency and sung it to my high school and college students on occasion. They'd look at me and laugh. This was my objective. Really.

So...here's Amelia on the swing.

Jacob, Amelia, Jared, and Abby on the frog,

(which is located in a part of the zoo that looks like coastal Mexico.)

Note that Jared's finger is nearly in his nose.

Dylan standing near the frog, wanting to sit on it as well.

Here he is with his quest realized, on the frog.





Jacob on the lamb. (No idioms here. I'm literal.)




Jared on the pumpkin.

(Yes, I'm not being very original in my word choice.)




Dylan on the green tractor.

Quickly a game of king of the mountain--er, tractor, ensued.

Amelia on the plastic pony--the only animal in the petting zoo that she would approach.

She professes to love animals, but only the plastic kind.

Yes, there was very little substance to this blog entry. What can I say? Sometimes I'm a minimalist. Or shallow. You choose.