Sea World

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Dickens was talking about San Diego, right?



Sea World recently opened what I can only describe as "Elmo's Ultimate Toddler Chaos!" It's a Sesame Street themed section of the park.



It's basically a lot of well-padded areas where kids can scream and freak out. Cooper loved it, but he kept crashing into other kids and making them fall over. An uptight one-year-old in a floppy hat HATED my son. It was hard to see his expression beneath the ridiculously over-sized hat, but I did hear him yell "Stop, you!" right at Coop and then (I think) he rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Then, it happened.



Cooper met Cookie Monster. Yes. THE Cookie Monster.

He was overwhelmed. His little brain blew a fuse. He got to see and touch his fave tv celeb.

A line began to form so I started to pull Cooper away. "Say bye to Cookie," I said gingerly. Then my lovely little child lost his s**t! He began to yelp, "Wait! WAIT!" His little hands were trying to grasp at the blue fur. He sobbed. He begged. For several minutes he was simply inconsolable.



Ice cream eased the suffering.



The stingray pond was very crowded. You could pay $1 for some fish to feed them, but since Coop seemed more interested in splashing the water rather than viewing the marine life, I decided to save my 100 cents.



Coop's favorite thing (besides meeting his furry, blue idol) was the aquarium. Each section we entered, he would yell 'FISH!"

He watched them swim. He saw a frog and said, "ribbit."



There were more meltdowns and tantrums.

I wish he'd stop flopping on the ground like a mackerel. I'm not a fan of that move.