The Increadible Edible Mouse

For most of the eight days of Chanukah, Raphaela thankfully has full schedule at Gan, but today she had vacation, and so I planned a full and fun day.

 To truly qualify as vacation, Raphaela and I slept in, if 6:30 am counts as sleeping late.  Then we spent most of the morning at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, first observing the animals for real that we have come to know and love through Dora and Diego.  Raphaela eagerly jumped from area to area, naming them all: Tapir! Peeing Cotton Top Tamarin monkeys! Iguana! Crocodiles large and small! Elephants! Tigress! Linda the llama!

A large eagle in the aviary sat on the rock right next to us, chirping away, and a lemur practically walked up to me and tried to jump onto my head.

Toward the end of our visit, Raphaela and I participated in a special zoo Chanukah activity, with sugar dough.  Together we constructed a totally edible candy mouse, and after very clear instruction, I told Raphaela that when she felt ready, she was allowed to eat her creation.  It almost sounded like cannibalism, the way she gleefully planned  the eating of the various mouse body parts, though I could tell that Raphaela harbored a certain level of hesitation about consuming her newest friend.

The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the warm Chanukah weather, and I treated Raphaela to a mini-manicure.

It took several hours, and my daughter ate the tail and the ears of the candy mouse, and then she cradled him, placed the rest of him carefully on a plate, and tucked the mouse into bed.