our palm beach zoo aldabra tortoise experience + a family 4-pack ticket giveaway

Ethan and I love the Palm Beach Zoo. If you follow us on Instagram, you've probably noticed we're there a lot -- once a week at least, usually. Ethan and I are on our second year of being zoo members and our special days spent at the zoo are some of my most cherished memories. We're at that point where Ethan knows most of the animals by name and I'm only minimally skeptical of his claims that the Singing Dogs recognize him when he walks up. The Palm Beach Zoo is monumental in our memories and family adventures, so I was really excited to throw Ethan for a little loop and surprise him with a new take on our usual zoo trip.

On Wednesday, Ethan and I were able to go behind the scenes and get to interact with the zoo's amazing Aldabra Tortoises as part of the zoo's animal experiences feature. We were met with an off again, on again rain storm and a cold front we weren't expecting, but that didn't stop Noto the tortoise from making quick friends with Ethan. Seeing the glimmer in Ethan's eyes as he excitedly waited to feed and pet Noto made me forget all about how chilly it was for our South Florida blood.

Many people have negative perceptions when it comes to zoos. The Palm Beach Zoo does a good job at squashing the negativity in one visit. No, you won't see whales or penguins or elephants or other animals that couldn't possibly thrive in our South Florida temperatures or in limited space, but you will find an ethical zoo with zookeepers who love every last animal as if they were family (and, if you ask Ethan, Mardi the white alligator is totally part of our family at this point!). The Palm Beach Zoo is all about conservation and sponsor many conservation programs as well several on site programs. (We even learned the animals get acupuncture treatments which is just about the coolest thing ever!).

The love the zookeeper had for Noto and the other tortoises was so apparent from the moment he began talking to us. Not only did Ethan and I get to experience these beautiful animals up close and personal, but we learned so much in our time with them. Through talking with the zookeeper, Ethan learned the differences between tortoises and turtles as well as what tortoises liked to eat, how the weather can affect their digestion and activity and how old they can live to be. He also learned that tortoises can feel you touch their shells, so it is important to always be gentle when petting them. Perhaps his favorite part was being able to feel the skin on Noto's head and neck, not just his shell.

I like to say I'm a "homeschool nerd" who advocates for the importance of play as a learning tool. In the same sense, children learn so much from the world around them. In his short visit with Noto, Ethan was able to take away so much knowledge and experience -- more than we give children credit for. It was a completely magical visit and I am so honored to have had the experience alongside Ethan to meet Noto up close. When I get to be Noto's age (humor me), I still will never forget the glimmer and excitement in Ethan's eyes as he stood in front of Noto for the first time!

Ethan has also decided that he's going to be Noto for this year's Boo At The Zoo, so I've got my costume-making work cut out for me.

For more information on the Aldabra Tortoise experience, check out the zoo's website!

A particularly fun new "zoo fact" is that the zoo is planning a new eco-friendly garden to grow fresh food for the animals. Twice a month, the zoo also has a fresh produce market where zoo goers and South Florida residents alike can do some shopping. Perhaps my favorite new addition to the produce market is the zoo's new coffee.

What's so great about the Palm Beach Zoo's new coffee? It's actually a bird safe blend which means that it was harvested in a way that has no negative impact on bird habitats. (It's delicious, too!)

With a commitment to sustainability, to the animals and to education, I simply have no choice but to fall in love with the Palm Beach Zoo a million times over each time we step through those front gates (which is a lot).

The folks at the Palm Beach Zoo also graciously offered one of my readers the chance to win a family four pack of passes to the zoo! Enter below and, if you decide to give Noto a visit (and I would totally encourage you to do so), tell him his buddy Ethan says hello!

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feet.

When Ethan was born, one of the first things I noticed was how soft his feet were. Impossibly soft. Almost unreal. As I fit his tiny newborn feet into my hands, I remarked how it didn't feel possible for a human's skin to be this soft.

At three and a half, those feet are different. They're rough and dirty and calloused. Blades of grass weaved in between toes, uneven toenails painted with mud. Those same feet are bigger now, awkwardly sized and disproportionate to the rest of his body. One day his body will catch up to those massive feet, the ones that seldom see shoes.

"Where are Ethan's shoes?" Usually in the car. They're always in the car. Ready for those places we go where shoes are mandatory, a buzzkill for Ethan who dreads these places for that very reason. These feet feel water and mud and grass and dirt under them at all times, most times, exploring the Earth below them.

This afternoon after a bath that removed mashed potatoes from the crevices in his thighs and watercolor paint from his elbows and earlobes, I took those feet into my hands again. This time to scrub them clean, but admire them all the same. How impossibly perfect they still seem.

keep your germs to yourself and other sick day pleas

I don't do sickness very well. It's the one area of motherhood that makes me feel stressed and anxious and like I'm not at all remotely qualified to handle anything that transpires. Ethan will sneeze and I'll fall to pieces on the floor sobbing and surrendering to an inevitable pediatrician visit the next day while my concerned husband gives me the side-eye and asks why I can't just wait to see what happens in the morning. And, sadly, that's likely an accurate scenario.

Many parents like to spew some garbage about "just the sniffles" or "just a cold." Sometimes they wipe their kids snot with the bottom of their shirt and say "maybe it's allergies" when we all know that this sudden onset of first-time allergies is totally a cold. Or a virus. Or something that requires antibiotics and throat cultures and medicine that takes CVS four hours to fill while my kid screams in the backseat because he will inevitably catch it. And, considering he gets his crappy immune system from his mama, I'll get it, too. I always do.

I just don't play the "just a cold" game and for good reason: Ethan never, not once in his little life, had "just a cold." His very first experience with illness happened to be a nasty bout of RSV that landed us in the hospital and served as the start of our formal relationship with his nebulizer (or "Nebbie," as the blue plastic bastard is called around here in an attempt to attach some affection and fondness towards it). RSV quickly spawned into RAD which, let me tell you, is anything but rad and basically stands for "you will have major respiratory problems that will one day become asthma, sucker" (or Reactive Airway Disease). From that first sickness on, Ethan couldn't get "just a cold" or "just the sniffles." It's an impossibility completely. A common cold that another child kicked to the curb in forty-eight hours becomes two weeks of respiratory misery for Ethan. Two weeks of treatments and lung steroids and sitting inside our house feeling stifled and bored with every project on Pinterest that we must have done at least seventy-four times each. Oh, and the coughing and the "breathing breaks" weeks after "just a cold" is finally gone, the promise that weeks later Ethan still won't be able to keep up with the other kids or play on the playground without flushed cheeks and a shortage of breath a la asthma. Yeah. No. Take your "just a cold" and shove it, please. We don't play that game. And don't pretend your kids crusty, goopy eyes and face full of snot is the result of being "really tired," either. We don't play that game, either.

If there's one thing other people love to share, however, it's germs. This has made living among society a challenge for someone like me who has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sharing germs. (Keep those suckers to yourself, please.) If I had a dollar for each time a mother toted her sick kid to a mommmy and me class, museum or playground and had the audacity to utter the words "we just couldn't stay cooped up at home any longer" with the intention to garner sympathy and understanding from me, I would be be rich. Or at least able to fund the Germ Restricting Bubble that I dream of inventing for all kids who are sick of the germ sharers among us.

Dude, just keep your sick kids home. Commend yourself on being noble and brave enough to survive the confines of your home during a time of illness. Take your kids on a car ride or a walk around the block for fresh air like the rest of us, not to the children's museum where your strep-ridden kid is free to lick their hands and then touch everything in sight.

I guess you can figure out where I'm going with this. We're sick. Again. It's been weeks since we left the house (aside from the one day, after day six of my antibiotic and finally feeling fully healthy, I let my friend take me out for a pre-birthday foot massage) and the germs inside these walls are keeping me up at night. No, they really are. Just when I thought we were all healthy, Ethan woke up barking like nothing I've ever heard before which, two hours later, was diagnosed as croup. For some reason, Ethan is really into having croup. He hasn't stopped telling me "I have the croup, mommy" before giving me a totally exaggerated cough which, thankfully, has finally lost the bark. Apparently croup (or "the croup" as Ethan says) does best in cold weather and, luckier yet, it's actually been chilly in Florida so in an attempt to beat cabin fever, my stroller-hating child leaps into his stroller every morning and we've been walking miles upon miles just breathing in the fresh air. We don't do good trapped at home. We become desperate and cranky and stressed out and frantic. On his third bubblebath of the day (because, you know, it's something to do), Ethan declared that he missed My Gym and his friends and hoped they would remember him when "the croup" went away. I assured him that they would. He smiled sadly and gave me an exaggerated cough.

We're miserable.

Miserable and ready to play rock, paper, scissors, throat punch with the next person who thinks sharing their germs is a rite of passage all children must endure to build their immune systems.