as we were leaving sea world yesterday, ava asked "how does shamu sleep?"

"hmmmmm.....well....hmmmmm.....honestly, ava, i am not sure."

"does he sleep in the water?"

"yes"

"how?"

"well, why don't we find a trainer and ask them?"

"ok!"

we were unable to find a trainer, so i promised her that when we came back (a given), we would find one. we returned this afternoon. we tried to locate someone that could tell us about shamus nocturnal reveries, but were not able to. so we went to the 4:30 show as usual, but as soon as it was over i jumped up and told peter that i would meet him by the stroller, but ava and i had to catch one of the trainers. so i steered ava the wrong way through the crowd (insert witty metaphor about salmon swimming upstream here) and practically attacked the poor guy as he was cleaning up the fish buckets. i waved my arm in front of his face and yelled "can we ask you a question?" -- good sport that he was, he stopped and i turned to ava and said "go ahead, honey." ava was frozen in amazement/shyness/confusion and stood there for a few seconds slack-jawed, but recovered and very deliberately articulated her question: "how does shamu sleep?"

the guy immediately launched into an explanation that was a bit over her head, but she caught the gist of it, which was that shamu does not sleep like people. he sleeps a little bit almost all of the time--resting part of his brain while other parts stay awake. this proved to be absolutely fascinating both to me and to ava (after i compared it to her experience when she is in her car seat and sort of asleep but not really...) and i was so happy that we had made the effort to unearth the answer.

carter FINALLY was able to play on the toddler jumpy thing -- for the last week it has been closed due to paint debris falling on it, and we have had to entertain him in the large sand pit--fun, but not the same. he thoroughly exhausted himself. it was terrific. i wish i had a room with a foam floor at home. he spent hours on it. he finally lay down in the middle and said "night night."