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Last weekend, my mother and I took Mazzy to the Central Park Zoo for the first time. On the way to the children's portion of the zoo (AKA where they keep the animals that won't bite your child's hand off), we passed a man playing the trombone under a tunnel. Mazzy stopped in her tracks, mesmerized. For ten minutes, she stood perfectly still as each note bounced off the cobblestone underpass; her expression changing from confusion to realization to total glee. It was a beautiful thing.

So what did I do? I spent every second of that ten minutes alternating from camera mode to video mode on my phone trying to capture the moment exactly. And when Mazzy had enough and went on her way, I MIGHT have chased her down and brought her back to the same spot to try and recreate the moment for a second attempt. I didn't succeed. There was no way to get the trombone player in the shot without missing Mazzy's expression.

Ditto for the moment when Mazzy waved back to the sea lion during his feeding. Pure uncapturable magic. (Unless you have a fish. Then it appears you can get that sea lion to do just about anything.)

All I have is the photo above. And while it does depict the wonder in Mazzy's eyes, I bet in ten years, I have no idea that she is listening to a trombone player. And the mutual sea lion wave? Gone forever.

As far as the petting zoo goes, would you believe I didn't take one picture of Mazzy with the animals? Or at least one good picture. There is video of Mazzy attempting to feed her sippy cup to a goat but my mom's hand got in the way. I think she was trying to protect Mazzy from goat germs, but she also effectively ruined a video caption contest opportunity. Thanks, Mom.

Because I had so many pictures of Mazzy at the zoo, but no pictures showing anything reminiscent of a zoo, I put together a comic strip called "Lil Maz: Zoo Detective".

It's important to note that Mazzy does not know any of the children with which she is interacting. Or from whom she is stealing. And yes, she actually pulled the pacifier out of that baby's mouth to loud and unfavorable results. Well, loud and unfavorable from his mother's perspective. I thought it was hilarious.

And took a picture of it, of course.

ZoodectectiveMEDDPI