Eclectic Parent

It took us a few days of swimming and playing before we could get the kids out of the house. We took our three and two of their cousins to the Maritime Aquarium on Friday. The have a special exhibit right now with a white alligator. There are only 44 albino alligators out of the 5 million in the world. I’m not sure they understood exactly how rare an animal it really is. Seeing the albino alligator brought up seeing the alligators in Florida; they aquarium also had an alligator snapping turtle and a two-toed amphiuma, both from the wetlands as well.

After seeing the alligator, we watched them feed the seals.  From the seals, we touched the sting rays. Then we walked through the aquarium exhibits of Long Island Sound at different depths; some of the fish are really strange looking and they have an enormous lobster. The kids always enjoy the interactive area where they can touch various small animals like horseshoe crabs and sea stars. The sharks and sea turtle are always fun to watch.

We also walked through a special exhibit of frogs. We had seen a similar exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History last year.  Some of the frogs have a amazing camouflage and are very difficult to sport in the tanks, although the kids thought it was fun to search. Some of the small, poisonous frogs look like plastic toys; they are so brightly colored and shiny that they look fake. It was a small exhibit but a nice reminder of what we’d seen the year before.

Back to grandpa’s and more swimming.