We are back from our trip to San Diego. Neither David, Miss Leyba nor I had visited San Diego before and we all enjoyed our trip immensely.

One of the main highlights? Four days spent at the San Diego Zoo.

This was my favorite moment from our zoo excursions:

Video: Play time at the zoo from Carrie on Vimeo.

Meet Tutapenda, a two year old Bonobo (more here) who lives at the zoo and is just three months older than Miss Leyba.

Miss Leyba and Tutapenda played like this for about 20 minutes. Benobos are among the most endangered of the primates and I believe that this experience was a once in a lifetime opportunity! It certainly was one of the most remarkable events of my life and I believe you can hear the emotion in my voice (I was definitely tearing up during this interchange). For those of you who don’t know, my undergraduate degree is in biology and I’ve had a lifelong interest in Great Apes. So much so that I wrote my thesis in college on orangutan rehabilitation and, yes, I was choked up at that exhibit at the zoo too.

Bonobos are considered our closest living relatives (genetically) and I think it’s clear that developmentally Miss Leyba and this little guy are very similar. Thankfully, she doesn’t climb twenty foot tall trees (yet!). That would be too much for this Mama to take at this stage in life.

More on our trip coming soon…

We’ve been putting off her first real haircut for some time now.

Both David and I just adored her curls, but they have been so hard to take care of! Easily knotted and such a flyaway mess.

This is definitely more neat and tidy.

And grown up.

Even if I forgot to comb her hair before taking these pictures. Whoops.

Besides, she has two curls left, so I can’t really feel sad that they are all gone.

Those lovely curls appear to be untameable…

I already know that my biggest hurdle as a parent will be to keep Miss Leyba challenged. At two years old, she already speaks in full sentences, shows a strong interest in learning to read right now, and loves her puzzles. Not little 4 or 12 piece puzzles.

16, 24, 35, 63… 100 piece puzzles!

You know, the ones that say 6 years and up on the side:

I should make a movie so you can see her at work. After all, you may need documented proof of her in action to believe me. She’s truly amazing.

And she knows it.

I do think she’s also screaming, “Mom, come on! Challenge me already!”