Zoo Trip Brings Questions

To celebrate the last day before another school year began, my husband and I decided to take our five kids to the city zoo.  It's a quaint little zoo for we live in a rather small city in the South but nevertheless, it's a zoo which means the kids can enjoy viewing exotic animals, smelling the less than delightful odors of fecies, and running around.

We have been to many zoos across the United States and each time the kids squeal with delight as they watch the monkeys swing from tree to tree, alligators and crocodiles snapping their mouths, tigers and lions sitting underneath trees in the shade, reptiles slithering in their dark corners, and flaminogs prancing around near the water.  This trip proved to be like all the other zoo trips until we rounded a corner and saw two turtles doing something rather peculiar.

The ages of my children range from 17 months to 8 and 1/2 years which means they are totally curious about any and all movements, noises, grunts, etc.  My seven year old daughter was the first to witness the odd game the turtles were playing.  She wanted to know why the bigger one was insisting upon a piggy-back ride from the smaller turtle.  She concluded that the idea was simply unfair for it should be the smaller turtle riding on top of the bigger turtle, not vice versa.

Suddenly, we heard the big turtle groaning and grunting and trying to jump onto the smaller turtle.  My kids began to laugh at the sight and the sounds that were being acted out in front of us.  Of course none of the children realized that the big turtle was trying to mate and my husband and I just laughed with the kids.  The next question startled me though for my daughter wanted to know how to tell the difference between a boy and girl. 

What?  Had she seen something going on in this game between the turtles that I did not see?  I panicked for a split second before I realized that it wasn't necessary to go into the whole scenario of what was going on between the turtles because it was then I realized that my daughter had gone on to see the giraffe exhibit and was viewing the animals extremely closely.

I asked her if she could spot the difference between the two giraffes.  I figured I could make this into a "Highlights" type of game in which you view a picture of the same exact thing but in one picture, the item has been slightly skewed.  My daughter looked back and forth, back and forth, and finally she said, "One has something that is hanging down and the other one doesn't."  She peered up at me over her glasses with a slight smile on her face, was she right?  Did Mommy approve her assesesment?

I smiled back at her and replied, "You're right! That's the difference!  And if you look at other animals today, you might see the same difference."  "Can I call it a triangle?  It kinda looks like it." she said.  "Sure, honey, whatever you like."  For the rest of the trip, my daughter peered into each cage searching for the "triangle" upon which she would cry out, "That one is a boy!  That is a girl!"  At the end of our trip, she looked at me and then her daddy and I know what she was thinking..."Does Daddy have a triangle?"  I am so not going to answer that question now but at least my daughter learned how to critically think at our highly educational zoo trip!