Today Art and I had what we call ‘special time’, one on one time with a parent. We went to the science museum. I’m consistently a little disappointed with the place, probably cause most of the stuff is geared towards older kids. And I’m always surprised and turned off at how totally overpriced it is, even if you don’t see their big exhibit (King Tut, which can cost $30 each for adults, $18 for 4-year-olds…really). A good amount of their exhibits are dusty and boring for children of any age, some of the hands on stuff is  overused and barely works and many other ‘learning stations’ just look like big video game-type machines they roll in, plug in and hope kids learn about gravity or centrifugal force or something. Lots of words and buttons that don’t really do much and parents hovering over their kid trying to read the confusing instructions and get their money’s worth.

You might be wondering, why would we go if I detest it so? For a single reason: Art loves to see the dinosaur bones. He’s been with Jessica twice before and wanted to show me. He loves to see all the different ones, the huge flying quetzalcoatlus in the lobby, the massive triceratops, a bigass t-rex head and some others. But, to be entirely honest, they were scattered around the museum in an unfocused sort of way and the little write-ups about the dinosaurs were hard to find, lacked any sense of continuity and were ultimately not all that informative.

We tried watching a couple ‘shows’ at the stage they have there. It was a parade of well-intentioned science majors talking in an entertaining-style voice really fast to a group of confused disconnected kids. Both times we sat down to watch Art eventually wanted to leave. “It’s too loud, Papa.” In my view, kids don’t need to be entertained by the delivery, it’s just another layer of disconnect.

And, to top off my distaste, the Science Museum no longer participates in the metro-wide library program called Museum Adventure Pass. It’s a great program that allow families to ‘check out’ passes to museums across the metro, making art and culture more accessible to everyone. Shame on you Science Museum!

Art looking through a big glass ball..

Art had the most fun and spent the most time building carbon molecules with foam blocks and pvc pipes nubs. No plugging in, no buttons.

Tonight, last minute, she decided to make some sort of Indian chicken dish. “It was a keeper for sure, that gets five stars,” she just said after I mentioned how tasty it was. She just looked it up, it’s called Murgh Kare (here’s the recipe). Anyway, over dinner Jessica, after tasting her dish, turned to me and complimented herself: “I’m getting pretty fricken’ good at making dinner aren’t I?” And she is! She even made some sort of saag-type type dish with fresh spinach and potato as a side, totally made up the recipe and it was tasty. I said to her before, it’s really wonderful for me and all the kids that she can cook and that she’s getting so good at it. Think of all the million meals we’ll be enjoying from our in-house chef? And can you imagine the quantities she’ll be making in 10 years? Holy wakamolee!

And she does it with two babies.

"Papa, I know what makes the earth heavy," said Art with certainty. "The street and houses."

They WILL LOVE THEM!

Bailey, left, and Netta holding their soft lovey.

Today we took all four children to the zoo.  We don’t go very many places with all four children, just relatives’ houses or maybe a friend’s house where I will be able to nurse, there will be extra people to help with holding babies or engaging our older children and there will be few demands on our attention.  But today I really wanted to go with Ben and the boys to the zoo.  We can’t stay in forever!!!   It was successful, despite the fact that we had to separate into boys and girls camps most of the time and lost each other’s respective parties twice.  But it was not crazy chaotic and everybody got to see what they wanted to see – the boys and I got to see the gibbons and other animals in the tropics and Ben and the girls got to see a nice bench near an orchid information table.

It also just happened to be a birthday for one of the grizzly bears.  So the Berenstain Bears came to the zoo.  It just occurred to me… Are the Berenstain Bears Jewish?  Or would that have to be BerenstEIN?

Anyway, here’s Art getting his obligatory hug from Mama Berenstain.  He has always enjoyed meeting mascots.  Just like his aunt, Emily.  He wanted Netta and Bailey to be able to meet the Berenstains as well, but by the time we had gone back to where Ben was sitting with the girls and returned the Berenstains had left for a coffee break or lunch or something.

Lewis was apprehensive at first, but once he got closer he also wanted to hug Mama Berenstain.

I’m not sure of the context but I just hate seeing a kid, especially Lewis, crying.

As I was photographing this yesterday I was thinking how fun it’d be to come to the state wrestling meet with Arthur and Lewis one year. They’re constantly (especially Lewis) asking to wrestle and seeing the actual sport might up their game. I can pin Art and Lew every time.

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We’re all anxiously awaiting it’s arrival. I’m especially looking forward to visiting the cottage with the kids. Here’s a photo of Lewis from summer 2009.