Notes from the Zookeeper

The boys had coupons for a free lunch at Subway, so today we picked up sandwiches for lunch and had a picnic at the park around the corner. It's an old park, with big trees and weathered tables and little in the way of equipment, so they were trying to figure out good games to play.

The trouble with having kids 2.5-3 years apart is that they can't play physical games together very well. The 6yo is never, no way nohow, going to be able to catch the 11.5yo when they play tag. This is frustrating for the 6yo.

I looked up from the sock I was knitting (say! I never knew how fun it is to knit socks on two circs! next up, magic loop) and said, "What if we played some kind of tag where I was the director, and I would say, 'You walk like an elephant, holding your ankles,' or, 'You take long jumps like a kangaroo'?"

The idea caught their fancy and we spent an animated ten minutes working out the details. What we came up with for the cast of characters:

• Invertebrates: a spider, who scuttles around on hands and feet; a slug, who must crawl on his belly; an octopus, who drifts around wafting his arms but who can shoot "ink" (i.e., chuck grass) at a pursuer who must, if hit by the ink, stand still for ten seconds while the octopus escapes. Am I mixing up my cephalopods? Should that be the squid?
• Quadrupeds: elephant, who must hold his ankles but is free to move as fast as possible in that position; cow, who walks on all fours mooing (there was discussion of whether the cow should have to eat some grass if he forgot and walked like a biped -- I vetoed that idea even though I was the one who suggested it); goat, who can make a head-butt gesture and immobilize the tagger for a count of ten.
• Tree-dwellers: bird, who runs around flapping; gibbon, who brachiates, whooping loudly; monkey, who can briefly claim any tree as base.
• Big cats: tiger, who can make a slashing motion that stops a pursuer for a count of ten; panther, who can be briefly invisible (everyone else has to cover his eyes for a count of ten); cheetah, the only one who can run flat out on two legs.

The director makes the animal assignments and switches them at frequent intervals. "It" is a flamingo (sort of); he must chase everyone while hopping on one foot, holding his other ankle. This was the announcement that made Alex say, "No. I am not playing that game." But everybody else was excited, so we gave it a whirl. Joe says, "It was very fun and you should tell everybody it's called 'zoo tag.'" Marty says, "It's an interesting game that could go on forever as long as somebody doesn't lose their voice." (That was the reason I called a halt.) I see more zoo tag in our future.