The One Where We Fed Dolphins (or The One Where Nikos Deviated His Septum)

The day after Thanksgiving Taki, Nikos and I drove over to SeaWorld for Nikos' first amusement park experience. We hit the park when it opened at 10 and planned to stay until Nikos had enough.

Our first stop was the Christmas section of the park which involved a beautifully decorated tree, a camel and a reindeer. I tried to get Niko to pet the camel but he was not into it at all. In fact, he actually tried to scale my back to get as far away from the camel as possible.

Oh look, all of a sudden with Daddy he gets all brave. Showoff.

Posing by the tree. One of these days I'll ask a stranger to take the family pic.

Sorry about the lack of pictures with the reindeer, which didn't win any love from Nikos either (could have been because I was holding him?) On a side note, the reindeer's name was Olive, which I think permanently crossed it off the Possible Baby Name's list for us...but you never know.

And now on the my favorite part of the day, the dolphin feeding. I remember having the best time at this exhibit when my parents brought us when we were younger (I'll have to try and dig up a picture) and it was still awesome. I could have easily spent all of our money here - which at $6 a pop (for three fish) would not have been hard. Of course, with Taki (the voice of monetary reason), Nikos and I had to settle for only three trays of fish.

A dolphin says hello to us and asks for some fish. You are supposed to lay your hand flat on the water and they will approach you. You can then pet them and then toss a fish in their mouth. At this point Nikos remains unconvinced.

Getting a little curious...

We didn't get the actual shot of when he reached down to pet the dolphin's nose but he finally (8 fish into the feeding) did it! Next up was the small shark tank which he had no problem sticking his hand in. I think his priorities may be a little bit screwed up.

We headed over to the Shamu show (choosing the seats above the Splash Zone) and Nikos loved the show! He was really into watching the orcas and rocked a little to the music that accompanied the show.

Next up was lunch. Mr. Practicing-to-be-a-Male-Model (by eating practically nothing) was a big fan of the whip cream that came with his strawberries. (Note how it even made it onto his eyelashes.)

After lunch we hit the dolphin show and the penguin exhibit. Niko loved pointing out the penguins and was actually trying to put his hand down (like we learned at the dolphin feeding) to get the penguins to come over to him. They weren't buying it.

At the manatee exhibit, checking out the Alligator Fish (granted, not the proper name - maybe Maile knows it?) prior to what will now be referred to as How Nikos Deviated His Septum.

So obviously I didn't get said incident on video, but here's basically what went down. Niko and I were sitting on a small carpeted ledge next to the manatee tank. After we got off of it he wanted to climb back up on his own. Keeping in mind it is now around 2:30 and he hasn't had any nap whatsoever (he usually goes down at 12:30 for 2-3 hours), he was a little drowsy. When he reached up to put his hand on the step to pull himself up he missed and his nose crashed into the step. Screams and tears ensue. We scoop him up and go outside to assess the damage. His nose immediately swelled a little on one side and started turning shades or red, black and blue. Taki and I compare our highly knowledgeable medical opinions about whether his nose could be broken.

The conversation went something like this:

"Well, there wasn't any blood, I think there would be blood." "Is there always?" "Well, when I broke my nose there was a lot of blood." "But didn't someone also swing a bat into your face?"

"I'm gonna squeeze it and see if he starts crying again." "What??" "If I squeeze it and he starts crying again than it is still really painful and may be broken." "Oh, okay." (Squeeze happens - no tears.)

"Well he only cried for like 30 seconds, if he broke it he would still be crying, right?" (Says the person who has never broken a bone in her body but did cry before getting the epidural.) "Yeah, I think you're right."

"He probably just deviated his septum." (Me, silently asking his future wife to forgive me for the snoring that she will have to endure) "Okay, can we go get a soft pretzel then?"

And here I am posing with food again. Who knew this would become a recurring theme on the blog? Of course, the point of this shot is that it is a Shamu pretzel. Fun! You can barely see the nose damage in this picture - see, it doesn't look that bad! (We won't mention that it progressively got worse and Taki's mom accused us of abuse when we got home. Details.)