Dinosaurs and Butterflies and Vomit, Oh My!

It's Spring Break! Having a school-aged child for the first time, this week-long reprieve from having to drive back and forth to school, pack lunches, track down hidden library books and adhere to some semblance of a schedule is a nice break for me! My only goal for the week was to do some fun and "special" activities with the kids so that I we didn't end sitting around the house in my our jammies all day reading blogs watching cartoons.

Yesterday we headed down to the science center. My co-worker and friend, April the Amazing Shrinking Nurse, joined me for the field trip, along with her little boy, G-man. There were some really neat things to see and do, although I have to admit, some of it was geared towards kids a bit older than our's. We would have loved to have visited the Planetarium, but alas, children under 4 were not permitted, which ruled out 2 of our 3. And we didn't have a stroller so we couldn't just strap the two little ones in, throw them a handful of crackers, and go enjoy ourselves. JUST KIDDING!! Who would do that?

Instead we totally took advantage of the tot area, letting the kids run and play, climb and explore. Of course, Zoë aka "Little Miss Soggyshorts" was only interested in the water trough, where she managed to thoroughly soak her shirt and sleeves in about 2.7 seconds. The girl is part otter, I swear. She spent the next hour holding her shirt away from her stomach and up under her armpits in order to keep the cold wetness away from her tummy.


After that, we headed into the dinosaur exhibit, which was pretty cool. The lighting wasn't great anywhere in the place, and since I'm still learning how to turn my camera on and off, configuring the Nikon to suck up what little light there was and capture clear and detailed photographs while trying to keep track of two children who were running in different directions was just slightly out of the realm of my parenting capabilities. Ever heard the term "herding cats"? Yah, try doing it in the near dark.

Instead, I turned my lens on the large inanimate exhibits and they cooperated quite nicely.

Next we headed over to the Butterfly House, giving my two hoodlums-on-foot very strict instructions about NOT touching the butterflies. The House was really very beautifully done - lots of lush greenery, a touch of humidity...I almost forgot for a minute the drizzly grayness outside that is spring in the Pacific NW. I've never seen so many different butterflies in my life! And so brilliantly colored and intricately detailed. I could have stayed there for hours, watching them flit around.

Sadly though, partway through the Butterfly House G-man started throwing up. And if that isn't bad enough, April was carrying him and ended up covered in vomit. So we hastily exited the tranquility of the Butterfly House and made a beeline for the bathroom, where she attempted to get herself and G. cleaned up as well as possible. We then bid the science center farewell and headed home. All three of the kids fell asleep before too long so the drive home was quiet and uneventful. Even with the abrupt and unfortunate ending to the outing, it was a lovely day.