Night Shift Entertainment

Too cold to dash around? Never!

The past two weeks have been pretty challenging as Dan went back on night shift. I know he gets no sleep while the kids are at home, so after school, we head off to various destinations to try to occupy a couple of hours until dinner time. The first week, I did all the shopping errands I could think of - and battled the constant "Mommy can I have..." and Paul's constant hunger. Apparently, he inherited the Saluke girl hunger that leads to some pretty cranky behavior. Bummer. This week, it was rainy and I was running out of ideas. Plus, Penny had a random day off school, so I had to occupy them both outside the house for an entire day and figure out how to work nap time in there. Thankfully, the zoo is free every Wednesday after 2pm, so we headed there two weeks running.

Paul loves Swiper the Fox, so this close
 encounter was thrilling.

The Staten Island Zoo is such a kid-friendly place to go. The railings allow little kids to see the animals. They have a great petting zoo with exotic ducks as well as ye standard farm critters. It's not huge, which is actually good for little guys. Plus it has a decent sized indoor section that helps provide some warmth and relief for winter visitors like ourselves. I have also been pleasantly surprised by how much has changed over the past couple of years. They've got lots of new animals, including better representation of all continents, lots of furry guys and scaly guys, plenty of things that are active during the day so you can actually see them. You can tell they've done some remodeling and they've got more under way. I was relieved because they were in the midst of some hard times when I was there last and the outward appearance at least seems to indicate they're recovering reasonably well.

The one big thing we missed on our visits was Staten Island Chuck. Chuck is our very own marvelous meteorological mammal: a groundhog that personally advises the mayor each Feb 2 about how much more winter to expect. There is a certain amount of local pride in our little furry friend - Penny knew all about groundhogs by our second visit because her class had done some related activities. I read that Chuck did NOT see his shadow (though how he missed it on such a sunny day IS a bit befuddling), so we have hope that Nor'Easter Nemo is one of our last big wintry events for this year.

As I type, I can hear the plows dragging the road - only an inch or so of snow currently on the ground, but many more to come overnight. A bummer of a close to Dan's night shift as he is unlikely to be able to get home tomorrow morning when his shift ends. Normally, I'd think he'd be allowed to sleep a bit at the hospital before heading home. However, they've been so swamped with flu folks over the past few weeks, the hospital has literally run out of beds at both of its SI locations on several occasions. Perhaps the flu patients will stay safely at home long enough for Dan to find an empty bed and catch some shut eye before he ventures out into the messy streets. Keep him in your prayers as we find out what actually happens at a hospital in a big weather event. Remember for Sandy he was on vacation, so we don't actually know what to expect this time around.

SI Zoo has a world-class herpetological collection.

On the plus side, all those earlier shopping trips mean we are well-stocked here at home and I can finally relax about not having to take the kids out to allow Dan to sleep. Whew! No more night shift until after the baby arrives. Wait...that may be when the prayers are REALLY needed. June may be a very quiet month on the blog...we'll see.