Monterey Bay Aquarium

Today was Sava's fourth of fifth visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and each time it gets better. When he was small and just learning to walk, our first visit there was something like a nightmare; he freaked from the crowds, wanted to crawl everywhere, and had no interest in any of the exhibits. When I see parents with very young children now, I feel like taking them aside to tell them that it is not worth it.
Two years later, things are so much different. We are now intimately familiar with the Splash Zone, which is an ingeniously constructed children's-musem-type of place where toddlers and small children get their hands in water. Sava and I spent about an hour getting wet in the Zone this morning, while grandma and Dad toured one half of the aquarium. I tried to get Sava interested in the live penguins, right next to the Splash Zone, to no avail; instead he spent at least twenty minutes playing with three plastic fish in a little pool in the toddler area. It never ceases to surprise me what does and does not catch his attention.
After a nice lunch looking out on the Bay where Sava gaped at kayaks, motor & fishing boats, we went to the Outer Bay area, where he squealed in delight at the sight of jelly fish and some really big fish like sharks and tuna; we visited a temporary exhibit of seahorses, which was exquisitely done but too crowded for our taste. Then of course we stopped by the wild otters, whose exhibit Sava had seen and remembered from a couple of months ago, because of a couple of installations involving "buttons"--especially one with a plastic otter going round and round in a circle like a train.
When we came home, we drew pictures of jelly fish.