Zoo Poo

We'd fancied going to Whipsnade Zoo ever since we'd seen it on the Sing & Sign DVD that Munchkin's addicted to.  Along with Sweetpea's parents, we'd saved up a load of Tesco Days Out vouchers and were looking forward to our day out, even if it was half term -busy- and Munchkin and I were a bit under the weather.

It's around a two hour journey from Angmering to Whipsnade, but we didn't care... We love zoos!  Munchkin kept talking about animals and seemed to be looking forward to it despite having a sick day from nursery the day before.

We arrived to massive traffic queues.  You have a choice of free parking or taking your car in the zoo for £20.  We initially decided to park for free, then changed our minds, meaning that we unintentionally jumped half the queue to drive into the park.

Upon arriving, we were unsure where to go.  The sign posting wasn't great and we needed to find Sweetpea's family.  We parked up and went to meet them, thinking there would be made up footpaths suitable for buggies.  Whilst there were some paths meeting this description, many were waterlogged or non existent.  We didn't see the giraffes because it was too muddy.

The zoo is large and really spread out.  It would be a challenge to get round it without a car.  There are narrow roads without pavements going round it.  It's important to point out that Whipsnade is not a safari park, you don't see much whilst driving in your car.  Most zoos we've been to have had a programme of keepers' talks, we didn't see a keeper during our day at Whipsnade.

My sister-in-law was even less impressed.  She was underwhelmed by the number of baby change tables, and felt the service in the cafe we went to was abysmal.  Had it not been for the Tesco vouchers, admission plus the car -which wasn't covered by Tesco vouchers- would have been around £130 for four adults and a child -Munchkin is under 3 and therefore free- ZSL might do some good conservation work but a day at Whipsnade Zoo is a waste of time.  It's neither a zoo nor a safari park but the worst of both worlds.

The social life of a one year old

There's no doubt about it, my daughter has a more active social life than I do!  In addition to her usual Monday morning swimming class and Saturday morning baby signing class, this week she got to spend Monday afternoon with her favourite cousin in Lewes, on Friday morning she went to gymnastics for the first time, on Saturday afternoon she was invited to a garden party (!) and on Sunday she went to Drusillas Zoo for the first time.  However, the trip to the zoo was as much for Mummy and Daddy's benefit as Munchkin's.  We've always loved anything to do with animals and it's great to finally have a child to use as an excuse!

I've been aware of the existence of baby and toddler gymnastics classes since I was pregnant, but this was my first opportunity to find out what it was all about.  There are two clubs in the Worthing area, alllowing parents to take their child to a a class every day if they're so inclined!  We went to Wickers in Lancing, which takes little ones from "competent walker" onwards.  (The other club, Teenie Tigers, takes them from crawling, but only does one under 2s session a week, on a day we can't attend.)  Wickers offers 7 sessions a week for Munchkin's age group; we attended one of the Friday morning sessions.  The sessions are drop in - the first one's free, then it's £3.70 a time.

There are a number of reasons why I want to get Munchkin involved in gymnastics.  First and foremost, I was convinced she'd enjoy it as she's always climbing on things, and loves bouncing on inflatables.  Munchkin's late granny was a gymnastics coach when I was a child, and I think a good way for her to learn more about her grandmother is by doing something that Granny would have liked and helped her with.  I was keen for her to do BG affiliated gymnastics as opposed to a pre school physical activity as this is something she can continue when she's older, if she wants to, of course.  (BG is British Gymnastics, I think it's the same organisation that was known as BAGA when I was a child.)

Wickers is located on Lancing industrial estate.  It's easy to find if you've got the instructions from the website with you, but I left them at home and overshot the entrance!  It's a purpose built gymnastics club within one of the industrial units.  The club has all the equipment you'd expect such as beam, vault, uneven bars (when did they stop being asymetric?) and a large floor work area.  Additionally it has toddler friendly equipment such as a mini trampette and soft play type items.  There's currently a trampoline there, but I understand it's going soon.  There are also lots of pre school toys to keep small people amused.

The session started with a structured warm up.  I was concerned that Munchkin wasn't interested in this, but Emma, one of the coaches advised me that there were always some who joined in and some that didn't.  The warm up was followed by free use of the gym equipment.  Munchkin's favourite was the trampette, though she tried everything the coaches suggested and they taught me how to support her doing forward and backward rolls.

Gymnastics was definitely a hit, and we'll be going back as soon as we can.  Munchkin was the youngest in the class by about a year; I'm trying to encourage some of her friends' parents to give it a go as it would be nice if there were some children closer to her age.