🐾🐼⁉️🐿Qi Ji seeks playmate, finds squirrel & trains to be top contortionist acrobatic superstar!🏆🎊

Mei Xiang was ferociously tearing into her sugarcane in the yard early Tuesday morning while Xiao Qi Ji slept in his tree. I found Tian Tian indoors zealously working a burlap bag, probably looking for an opening & a snack inside. Back outside, Qi Ji had emerged from his treetop sanctuary and was trying to play with mama. Mei wasn't in the mood so he went to do his contortionist acrobatics on the jungle gym hammock. He was performing lots of spectacular stunts! At one point he paused to catch his breath, a squirrel popped up on the same log as he, they both froze and stared each other for a moment before his new buddy ran off. He found some boo near the forked tree, sat up against the tree and pretended to eat it just like Mei 🤭 Then he went back indoors to check on mama and back out to monkey around on the forked tree. Then back inside again, he sat up on the rock formation with Mei & helped her with her boo. He tried one last time to engage her in a good wrassling as she was trying to nap, unsuccessfully, and decided to lie next to her for a good boy nap too. On Friday morning, Xiao Qi Ji was again trying his most adorablest to persuade Mei to play! It did not work so he went to play by himself, ran around with twigs in his mouth, scampered up his tree, fell out, rolled & tumbled about the yard, finally ending up on his jungle gym hammock for more contortionist acrobatics. He very diligently practices every day, trying out different moves & as many positions as his brilliant mind can imagine! And we just love watching it all! Thank you for joining me on my visit to the zoo! This video was shot in person at Smithsonian's National Zoo by me, with my trusty camcorder last Tuesday & Friday morning, September 21th & 24th.