When Peacocks Attack

I have been working weird hours lately, which has actually been a lot of fun. I have been working the 3pm to 11pm shift so I get to wake up to the alarm clock at 7 that shouts "Daddy, where are you!!!!" and I get to lay back in bed around 12:30 after trying to get Kenzie back on her side of the king size bed and out of the middle (no easy feat let me tell you).

The benefit - I get to spend way more time with Kenna. On Tuesday and Thursday, Kenzie leaves me in charge of the child and goes to work. I figured that I would take advantage of this and do something awesome with Kenna that she would love. I asked her what she wanted to do and we came up with a great trip idea. We packed up and headed to the zoo. She had not been there since last year so I was really excited to take her. It was a cold day and the forecast called for rain, but I figured we could have some fun for a little while.

We got there and it was a huge hit. We saw the monkeys, lions, bears, bearcats, tigers, and all kinds of gazelle type of things. She was having a blast and was very excited to see all the animals. In even better news, we were literally the only people that had come to the zoo because it was cold and ready to rain so all the animals were very happy to see us. The monkeys were especially fun this go-around. We started walking toward the giraffe exhibit where we get to feed them by hand and all of the sudden a male peacock jumped out of the bushes on to the path. He started crowing and it scared Kenna half to death. I must admit that I was also taken aback because I had not really ever encountered a peacock up close before. Kenna had been walking through the zoo by my side but now she climbed up my legs into my arms very quickly.

She started asking "Whats zat?" and I told her that it was a peacock. She told me that the "Peacock scary" and I actually kindof agreed with her. I tried to get her to man up and not be scared of it, but she insisted that it was too scary. I set her down in the stroller and started running at the peacock to scare it away, all the while making weird bird sounds to establish my dominance over the over-feathered creature. It stayed 10 feet ahead of me the entire time and I started walking back to Kenna thinking that I had taken care of the problem when she began to shout again "Peacock scary".



I turned around to see it, expecting it to be wandering off by now, but it was following me back to Kenna. Not only that, but he started crowing again. It was like something out of a bad dream. I had the baby on one side crying "Peacock scary" and the buzzard on the other side of me crowing at me and apparently threatened by my presence. I am thinking it was mating season or something. I tried talking sense in to Kenna but she started to cry and I tried chasing the peacock again but it just kept 10 feet in front of me.



We tried to go visit the giraffe cage but the peacock kept following us and Kenna kept crying. I tried for another 10 minutes and then decided to call it quits. On the 30 minute drive back home, all I could hear was Kenna insisting that the peacock was too scary. Zoo fail.

Maybe someday I will be a good enough dad to save my child from the peacocks. Until then, watch out if you visit the Richmond zoo and the peacocks are out. They may look harmless, but they have ill intentions and will ruin your trip.

In the safe car again.....


Pics of the bug