Kitties, chickens, tarantulas

Sophie and I had a girls morning out today. It's been seeming like she could use a little one-on-one time with me, so we planned a fun outing together. We went out for breakfast to Denny's (what a thrill!). Then we went to a really cool children's bookstore in a fancy part of the city. It kind of reminded me of the bookstore on "You've Got Mail" (the Meg Ryan movie)--it was one of those privately owned ones with lots of character. We walked in through the purple kid-sized door that was cut into the larger adult-sized one, and found a gray cat all stretched out in front of us. Sophie squealed with delight and ran right up to pet it. She was totally enthralled with the cat until a chicken ran by. Yes, a chicken! And then she squealed even louder and ran off to try to catch the chicken. She was loving chasing the chicken until it turned and started chasing her a bit and kind of made to peck at her fingers. Then she was done with the chicken. There were animals in every nook and cranny (mostly in cages, thank goodness, since one was a tarantula!), including a fish tank in the bathroom mirror. We saw ferrets, chinchillas, geckos, a frog and several types of birds, and even some rats in a cage in the floor that you could see through glass. Clever. I kept asking Sophie if she'd like to look at books since she typically enjoys doing that and it would be a lot easier to do without Owen. She always said, "No. More animals." So, we'd go around and look at all the animals again. Finally, she hooked up with some older girls and enjoyed chasing the cats around the store until the girls had to leave. We had a great time at the bookstore where we read no books. And now we're both tired, but only one of us gets to nap!