Apparently I wasn't clear enough when I said, "You have to throw it into the water..."

As much as I am often overwhelmed by motherhood, there are certainly those days when my kids make me smile way more than they make me want to cry, and today was one of them.

There's a little zoo (actually it's a farm) in town that the kids love to visit (and it's free!) so we went earlier this week, as we've been having fantastic weather lately. We arrived just in time for duck feeding at the pond, and Jack and Ellie were very disappointed when I explained that the (stupid) zoo people were charging a whole dollar for a cup of duck food and that I didn't have any money with me. (Seriously? Do they have to charge a dollar? Aren't we saving them labor by feeding the animals for them?) They watched enviously as other kids threw handfuls of food into the pond where the ducks would crowd around and swarm the food and it was all great fun.

So this morning we went back with money in hand. (Ellie later told Eric, "We fed money to the ducks!") I rounded up $2 worth of dimes from around our household; I put ten dimes in a little baggy for each of them and they proudly handed them over to the (stupid) zoo worker to receive their cups of food.

Now, before we got out of the car at the zoo, I gave them a little lesson in duck-feeding etiquette; I showed them how they can't hold the food out in their hands or the ducks might bite their fingers (they are quite aggressive ducks!). Instead, they needed to throw the food into the the water. I demonstrated taking food from the cup and throwing it. (I know, I'm such a good mom.)

So, in perfect first-born fashion, Jack gets his cup of food, and he proceeds to take one teensy pellet at a time and throw it into the pond. Those poor hungry ducks. He was still thrilled to pieces and didn't seem to notice the ducks flocking to the kid down the way who was throwing handfuls at a time. He LOVED watching which duck would "win," as he said, and was perfectly content to draw out the whole event and take his sweet little time.

Ellie, on the other hand, took my How to Feed to Ducks lesson quite literally, poor baby. She had her cup of food all of three seconds before she walked to the little bridge and flung the entire thing into the water...plastic cup and all. Oh my goodness, I about died laughing. She looked at me glowing and said, "I frew it, Mommy!" so proud of herself. I looked over to see if any zoo workers noticed, and that's when I saw a sign that said, "Please return your plastic cups to the counter." Whoops.

The sweetest thing though, was how Jack shared his pellets so generously with Ellie when he noticed she didn't have any left and she was feeling a little sad...of course, he only gave her one at a time.

And after lots of warning NOT to give any duck food to Samantha ("So WHY don't we give any to Samantha?" "Cause she's gonna eats it!" "That's right..."), Jack handed her a teeny pellet, and to my surprise she copied all the other kids and threw it over the fence! A bazillion ducks flocked over and she wouldn't stop shrieking with glee. It was so fun.

On the way home Jack asked for a snack, specifying his desire for french fries, and in one of the strangest sentences I've ever said I replied, "No honey, we can't buy any french fries today because we spent our money on duck food."

I love my kids.