Saturday Surprise

Surprises.  I love them.  And I love that one of my boys is old enough now to love them too.  And today he got a pretty terrific surprise. Sam loves bears.  I mean really, really loves bears. Some may find his affection for these animals to be borderline obsession, but I, his loving Mama, prefer to call it passion.  He is passionate about bears, all bears.  Black, brown, polar, koala, panda...he doesn't discriminate. He is wild about all of them.  So imagine my excitement to learn that this was "bear week" at the science museum and we could watch a feeding session today at 2:00.  I knew this was going to be huge for Sam. Since falling in love with bears, he's seen plenty of movies and looked at lots of books about these creatures, but he hasn't seen the real deal.  So off we headed, only telling Sam that Daddy was taking us somewhere that he would probably really like and may even see a few surprises.  Bears never came up during the drive which guaranteed a truly unexpected surprise.

We were running about five minutes late and I was so worried he would be stuck behind a crowd and not be able to see.  Jody dropped us at the door and I rushed Sam inside to pay and find the exhibit.  "Straight out the doors and follow the path, you'll see the signs," were my instructions.  She forgot to mention it was about a half a mile a way.  I walked as fast as I could with a three year old that got distracted by every thing we passed.  Soon I threw him on my back and practically ran to the exhibit.  I walked up to find...no one. Except one lady.  I asked her if this was the spot for the bear program and she said, "Um, yeah, but it's already over."  Ten minutes late and we missed the whole thing (apparently all she did was throw oranges to them and tell facts about each of them).   I think the poor lady, who turned out to be the bear keeper, saw the disappointment in my face and she offered to hang around and talk to us.  I waited for Jody and Jack to catch up before we got close enough for Sam to spot his surprise.

I don't think I'll ever forget the look on his face when he peered through the fence and saw those black bears.  It was a look of pure surprise and excitement.  I think he would have watched them play all day and he even asked if we could take them home with us. There really isn't anything like seeing your child that happy.  It's priceless.

As we walked to the exhibit, Sam spotted a sign with a bear on it and seemed a little puzzled.

Shocked and amazed, he couldn't quit smiling.

Smiling over this...

and this.

Jack was thrilled too and constantly tried climbing the fence to get closer.  

The bear keeper gave the boys a bear key chain.

Before we left the bears, I asked Sam how happy he was with his surprise.  "This happy, Mommy."  That face says it all doesn't it?