What's Black & White &...aw man this sucks
September 24, 2012
Well, which IS it, Cereal Box? WHICH IS IT?
Not all black and white? Or pretty black and white. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. STOP TOYING WITH ME.
Especially in light of the National Zoo's devastating loss of the newborn panda cub this weekend. Which: No joke or snark, I am UPSET. I am feeling genuine feelings of feelingsosity and I don't like it. This goes against every word I've ever written about The Fucking Zoo and how it Fucking Sucks because it's Outside and Full Of Nature and Pooping Things and also Uphill In Every Possible Direction. But there it is. I am really terribly sad and bummed about the poor tiny wittle baby panda and the poor sad mama panda and DAMMIT, NATURE. YOU REALLY ARE THE WORST.
Also the worst: Me, for deciding to tell Noah about the baby panda yesterday morning, while he pondered the above cereal box and asked questions about pandas and hey! Speaking of pandas! There's a brand-new miracle panda baby at the zoo that we can maybe go see in a couple months!
And of course Noah — since he is NOT a bitter jaded Zoo-person like his mother who thinks the pandas are kind of overrated and not worth the line because they just SIT THERE and chew on leaves while the tourists are all OMFG PANDAS PANDAS PANDAS — thought this sounded excellent! Very exciting! Can we go today? Tomorrow? Today?
I totally jinxed that poor baby panda and I feel terrible about it. And now I have to decide between telling my child the truth or inventing a cover story about how the baby panda went to go live on a nice big wide-open bamboo farm in China.
***
Ugh. This is too depressing for a Monday. Let's look at some pictures instead, from earlier in the weekend when life was happy and fun and baby pandas lived forever.
BONUS OF WHAT THE ACTUAL LIVING HELL, STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, NOT-SO-BABY IKE:
WTF...walking up the stairs?!? Didn't he JUST emerge from your uterus?
Posted by: Sheila | September 24, 2012 at 01:02 PM
We told the kids about the Yay! baby panda, and then at dinner last night had to do the Boo! No baby panda talk. It was sad, but they took it very matter-of-fact-ly. I too am very sad about poor tiny panda. (Did you know it was only the size of a stick of butter? How do mama pandas not just put the baby down and lose it under a bamboo leaf?)
Posted by: Christine | September 24, 2012 at 01:04 PM
I'm beginning to think that the National Zoo is jinxed against pandas entirely. Poor thing, I'm just glad that I didn't mention to my kids; thankfully they are still talking about the chimpanzees eating poopies at the Baltimore Zoo.
Posted by: Dawn | September 24, 2012 at 01:05 PM
NO. NO. NO. You stop it this instant, IkeNonBaby! THE HELL KIND OF NONSENSE IS THIS, AMY? SERIOUSLY. THE FUCK? I CANNOT STOP SHOUTING.
I am angry about the baby panda. And sad. Angry because damn, Mother Nature. And sad because well, just damn, Mother Nature. (We didn't venture to the zoo this whole year when usually we go multiple times. I attribute this to heat and nature and pooping things outdoors in the heat which makes all manner of poop reach far beyond the nostril, into the chamber of the brain that spews Fucking Zoo, and also too: hills no matter where you turn). Truth to kids: the Chinese want their billions back. They settled for a baby panda.
Back to what I can deal with more easily: can't you like sit on baby Ike or tie him down, duct tape him so that he is actually living the baby in his name?
Posted by: Arnebya | September 24, 2012 at 01:06 PM
I am also quite sad about the baby Panda. And I have to admit I'm one of those OMG, PANDAS! even when they often are too far away to see properly. Good luck talking with Noah later...
Posted by: JoLynn | September 24, 2012 at 01:09 PM
Whoa, Ike!
Also, I was listening to NPR interview zoo officials about how they found the dead baby panda, and I could hardly stand it.
Posted by: SarahB | September 24, 2012 at 01:48 PM
I'm so glad you said that about (not so) Baby Ike, so I didn't have to. Not even my kid, and I was all, WTF, IKE?!? No one said you could get bigger. I tell this to my 1.5 year old all the time. Though, if she'd like to become potty trained today, that would be just fine with me. But she can only do it if she stays little. Who am I kidding - she can do it today if she continues to get big too. I am craving an end to diapers. Having just trained her big sis, I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I am running right for it.
Can you tell I'm procrastinating? And tired? Sheesh, Monday.
Posted by: CoraD | September 24, 2012 at 01:48 PM
Definitely go the bamboo farm route. We as adults can do all the mourning.
Posted by: Amy in StL | September 24, 2012 at 01:48 PM
I have been feeling all moody and emotional and damn if finding out about the panda yesterday didn't almost send me over the edge.
I'd go the bamboo farm route if I were you, but I also believe that it's the duty of parents to lie to their children.
Posted by: grammargeek | September 24, 2012 at 01:52 PM
Amy - at least Baby Ike still has some baby chub left! His chubby little baby hands and wrists are still there!
Posted by: Courtney@MNLiving | September 24, 2012 at 02:43 PM
I, too, am so sad about the Baby Panda. Did you hear that the Mama Panda has been cradling a plastic bear toy for days since the baby died? It's just too much, Mother Nature.
In related panda FYIs, a friend of mine did her graduate thesis on panda reproduction (she created a prosthetic panda vagina so males in captivity could, um, practice) and told me that baby pandas are actually so small when they are born that they literally shoot out of their mother's ladybits.
Posted by: Melissa | September 24, 2012 at 03:09 PM
yeah...20+ weeks pregnant with first child + baby panda article = inconsolable for at LEAST 5 minutes. I had to stop myself from going to the fridge and crying while holding a stick of butter (since they said the baby was that size). WAAAAHHHH!!!
Posted by: bria | September 24, 2012 at 03:20 PM
Conversation with my husband last night:
Stupid Man: Oh, the new baby panda at the zoo died.
Me: Did you really just tell a 7-month pregnant lady that a tiny baby panda died?? Are you TRYING to make me cry again?!
Posted by: Natalie | September 24, 2012 at 04:42 PM
I vote bamboo farm. Dead baby pandas is too much sad for little ones (or for me at the tender age of 29)!
Posted by: Meg | September 24, 2012 at 07:33 PM
On a happier panda note, let me just say that when went to the National Zoo for the first time with our kids a few years back, they were kind of underwhelmed with the pandas...until one did what I can only call a prodigious poop. So prodigious that they were able to call my attention to it and I was able to get a picture of it - IN PROGRESS. Talk about a lasting impression! They still talk about it to this day.
Posted by: Michele | September 24, 2012 at 09:38 PM
I told my son Sunday afternoon. He was inconsolable...now I am sad for the mama bear (they figured it out because of her distress cries) and I feel like a jerk. Awesome.
Posted by: Kate | September 25, 2012 at 08:55 AM
Maybe you could go with something vague. "Let's go to the zoo! Only the big panda is available to view today but that will still be cool, right?" Would that fly? or do kids ask too many questions?
Posted by: Millie | September 25, 2012 at 11:06 AM
That baby can NOT be walking up the stairs like a big boy. Dear Lord, where DOES the time go?
Count me in as another person who is totally bummed about the baby panda. Poor mama panda.
Posted by: liz | September 25, 2012 at 12:53 PM
Tell him! The kids at school will be talking about it. It's all over the place. You want him to hear it from you.
Also, the key to the National Zoo is get there REALLY early. All the animals have just been fed so they're awake and moving. I've seen the pandas wrestle. (And there was no line.)
Posted by: Liz | September 25, 2012 at 02:26 PM
I admit to being panda-obsessed. So, I actually know a lot about the mother (Mei Xiang) and how long it took her to get pregnant, and that if she didn't get pregnant this year, she was going to be shipped back to China. So sad. I'm glad my son isn't old enough to understand.
Posted by: Louise | September 25, 2012 at 02:41 PM
The baby panda death made me haz a sad, too.
Posted by: Suzy Q | September 25, 2012 at 02:52 PM
My work cafeteria had yay! baby panda cookies and cupcakes to celebrate. The cafeteria workers kept giving us looks yesterday like, "Dude. We know." Awkward.
Posted by: Shelley | September 25, 2012 at 03:08 PM
I have stopped watching nature programmes because something always dies. Then they're all 'awesome power of nature blah blah'. Polar bear cubs seem to be particularly unlucky
Weep fest.
Your boy is gorgeous. Same-ish age as mine and stairs are a nightmare. No fear, crap balance and same sense of self preservation as a lemming. Fun fun fun.
Posted by: becca | September 25, 2012 at 03:15 PM
Soooo, I mentioned to my kids that yay there's a new baby panda and then didn't tell them when crap new baby panda died. But, someone else told them. So depending on how N will take it you might want to tell him yourself. Mine looked like they were going to cry and I wish I had told them at home.
Posted by: kris | September 26, 2012 at 08:41 AM
This?
"...about an hour after its mother, Mei Xiang, let out an audible honk, indicating to the zoo's staff that something was amiss."
Made me cry. I can't stop obsessing over it. Poor mama. :(
Posted by: Tracy | September 26, 2012 at 10:43 AM
Do they make that Perry the Platypus shirt in adult size?
The Panda story is sad sad indeed.
Posted by: Tracey | September 27, 2012 at 08:36 AM