Ah! The perfect way to spend a HOT day...digging in the dirt, for both mommy and a 2GO3 year old, and spending time in the pool (both kiddie and big pool.) I cannot honestly remember EVER going swimming on Memorial Day. It was quite hot here today. I know, I know. Everyone says wait until July and you will really understand hot but I do not understand why people move to the south where it's warm and sunny and then spend all day inside a dark house with the air conditioning going.
We had a "get out of Dodge" weekend and spent time with the grandparents in the Big D. We went to the zoo. I was a little concerned that H was not quite old enough to enjoy the zoo but it turned out he had things he really wanted to see so the day went well. We will be going back there over the years to expand the experience, I'm sure.
We also spent time at a festival in a park with several museums. It was a gorgeous day and the overall experience was balanced between interest for adults and 2GO3 year olds. I had read that the Museum of Natural Science had dinosaur bones so we talked H into going to look at the "dinosaurs." Um, well, one dinosaur later and we were pretty much left with looking at dusty faded dioramas which I always find a bit creepy. There was no particular theme to the dioramas but as it turned out H really was paying attention to them. We walked up to one with wolves.
"Look, Mommy, that one has something. Mommy, that one has something in his mouth. It's a bunny! Why that one have a bunny, Mommy? Mommy, why that one biting the bunny?"
Uh, help me out here Grandma..."Grandma, why that one have the bunny for?"
Now, we have two blank looks for what to say at this point in the questioning. Quick quick ,what exactly do we want to get into at this point in time? Food chain? No, no not the time to begin that discussion. We haven't even talked about why we kill ants and spiders
"Mommy, why for that one biting the bunny?" Shoot, passing it off and then trying to ignore it never works with a 2GO3. "Uhhhh....He's moving the bunny H. He's just picking the bunny up and moving him to somewhere else."
"Oh." Runs over to the diorama window and back to the middle. "Look, Mommy, I movin' the bunny. There more bunny. I go get more bunny. Mommy, I move the bunny, Mommy." H flashes a wide grin of accomplishment.
"Great job!"
So, would that be the end of that subject for a while? Well, of course not. See, prior to going to the zoo, I allowed H to watch Madagascar (which he can almost say). For the life of me I couldn't think of anything that would scare him so we added it to our library of permitted videos. We don't have a lot of kids (or otherwise) videos but there are some I'm sure would scare him. I am not willing to buy a lot of videos. For some reason he doesn't want to watch Nemo which I think would be ok though I haven't seen that one in years either. I have checked out a few from the library about mechanical things but we have to order them usually so it is hit or miss.
Anyhow, we didn't get through the entire movie before our trip this weekend but it did provide a visual understanding for the big animals we might see at the zoo. He knows many animals and we have a much read book "Good Night Gorilla" that also provides a basis for the animals. H insisted on watching the movie when we got home yesterday. The rule is the movie is turned on again wherever it was turned off. We do not start over. Needless to say, I had not watched the movie in years and couldn't really remember the content....
"Daddy, daddy, why for lion sad? Why zebra sad? Why lion chase zebra? Daddy, for?"
"Well, the lion needs meat. The lion used to live in the zoo and now he doesn't. The people at the zoo used to give the lion meat. There's no one on the island to feed the lion meat."
"Meat? For?"
Silent laughing and joy at being absent at just the right moment in time. Maybe, I need to preview Nemo again before letting H watch....
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