Bringing up baby: Happy Birthday!!

Highlights:
* Tilly insistently toddling down the pathway to see giraffes and zebras.
* Tilly's supreme incoherent excitement when he sees a Real Live Elephant(tm) for the very first time! As Daddee tells it: Tilly gasped breathlessly, "-lf -lfa elpha-". He was awed.
* seeing the hippos have their morning tea; what large river horses they are.
* going through the meerkat tunnels with Tilly. He was very adventurous, and took charge of the direction half-way through. He's so small still, he could and did stand upright in the tunnels while everyone else was bent over. He climbed out of the tunnels all by himself.
* Tilly investigating the chicken.
* Tilly climbing the dragon.
* Tilly's fascination with the seals. We were in the underwater section, where one of the walls was glass. The seals continually swam towards the wall, and glided away again. The seals are so large! "Wow" says Tilly, impressed. "Wow".
* Everyone coming to Tilly's birthday celebration at the zoo.

***
The long awaited party was much anticipated, with carefully contained excitement kept well-away from the personage of high import.

Who knows what balls-up could happen?

People may not come. The event could be cancelled due to rain. Or excessive sunshine.

Guests were firmly told to meet at the zoo car park at 9.30am when the zoo opened, as we were going in a group and as hosts, we were paying.

As it transpired, the weather report was for cloud cover and some humidity, in between the few days of rain and wind.

On the morning, the grandparents mentioned it was raining on their side of the city. What was our contingency plan? Go to the zoo car park, and if it's still raining at 9.30am when it opens then we go to the aquarium.

On the morning, Ah Ee mentioned it was raining in her part of the city. She didn't want to walk in the rain, thank you very much. And Ah Ma didn't want to go to the aquarium but would settle for the third choice of the museum.

On our way to the zoo car park, it began to spot rain. Arriving at the car park at 9.15am, it stopped raining all together. The car park was quickly filling up. I called the guests to tell them to get here quickly; it was the zoo or nothing.

Grandparents were another 30mins away. Tilly and Daddee went in 10mins after zoo opened. Grandparents and I waited for auntie and uncle. In the end we went in without them, as they were another 30mins away.

In conclusion, we all saw as much of the zoo as we could withstand, and we had a very good day, and it was all worthwhile to have Tilly's breathless fascination with Burma the elephant, and the seals.

***
The day started off very well too, with Tilly and me spending the pre-morning together.

After the zoo, and his nap, he got cake once auntie and uncle arrived. He likes his cake very much, which I am very happy and pleased about. Daddee made the cake the night before, and I 'iced' it while Tilly napped.