Horrible Mom Moment

We spent the majority of Labor Day at Lake Tobias Wildlife Park about a half hour away from us. I can’t believe we have lived here for 3 years and I am just discovering this place, especially since I apparently have 2 daughters obsessed with animals. The park takes you on an hour long safari in a bus with the top cut off so you are up close and personal with the animals. They are not shy as they come right up to the sides to be fed. Lexi had a hay day with this! She couldn’t get enough of them as she was stuffing her arm down buffalo’s throats with her crackers. She caught on very quickly and would just hang her hand out over the side waiting for an animal to come and eat it. If they took too long she of course would nibble on the nasty wafer herself.

Luckily the day wasn’t too tainted from my HORRIBLE MOM MOMENT one minute into the safari! Somehow I managed to be the only one on the bus not to hear the guide say “You can feed most the animals, but do not hand-feed the birds. They don’t know the difference between the food and your fingers!” Needless to say when the first ostrich walked up to Kylee I started telling her to put her hand out and feed it. “Don’t worry Kylee, he won’t bite!” My trusting daughter proceeded to feed the ostrich and two seconds later I had a crying child in my arms, holding her finger with blood on it and saying “That was a BAD CHOICE MOM! he did bite me and I’m NEVER doing that again” I cannot even express how bad I felt! My daughter totally trusted me and I blew it. I felt so stupid and was just wishing I could erase the moment. We did recover and manage to enjoy the rest of the safari and as you can see Kylee did just fine feeding all the animals.

We later went on to a reptile show where Kylee got to pet a snake and a baby alligator. Lastly, we finished our adventure at the Petting Zoo where Alexis was absolutely hysterical. She all of a sudden could care less about feeding the animals because she was now able to hug them like stuffed animals and use them as her own personal pillow…(until they would get up and move). At first I was concerned about the disgusting goat germs but I quickly gave up as she was determined to enjoy this moment to the fullest. We had everybody passing by making comments and smiling at this 17 month old who was just one with the goats. So much for being timid around live animals. She has no fear and never once even hesitated. Kylee was off making sure each animal got their fare share of her crackers while Lexi was lounging out with the goats.

Lake Tobias Click on the little picture or the name in purple for a short video and as you can see we wore them out. Within 2 min. of our drive home this is what our back seat looked like!