We have a zoo at our house...

Marie is going through an unbelievable pretend/imaginary stage right now.

We spend countless hours going on alligator, giraffe, hippo, lion, and tiger hunts. Most of the time, Marie rides on our backs as we make our way through the house by crawling on our knees in search of these creatures.

When we find these wild animals, they are either scary (if it's in a dark room) or friendly tiny creatures that fit in the palm of our hand. Luckily we have Charlie in the house because if we find a particularly scary animal, he is there to bark at them and scare them away.

Marie is especially fond of the giraffe that goes everywhere with us...it jumps on the bed, takes a bath, and even visits the grandparents homes with us.

One night, Marie needed some cough syrup before bed so Andy got it all prepared. Of course the giraffe needed some too. So, he put some water in the medicine cup, Marie brought it to the giraffe, and looked away. Andy instructed me to quick drink it up. Marie turned around, picked up the empty cup and exclaimed, "the giraffe drank the medicine all gone!!!"

The weird taste of medicine/lukewarm water was disgusting, especially to this nauseous mom-to-be, but so worth it just to see how excited she was about it.

So, for now, we are playing right along with this imaginary wild animal stage and we have the worn-out knees to prove it.

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We have Marie's 1st Chistmas Program at her school Friday night. She is sooo excited and has been singing the song since August. More to come on that soon!