Teeth and Trips

2/21
So Ethan had a dentist appointment to have his molars sealed. He was very cooperative and got lots of compliments of being an ideal patient. Since his dentist is in Fairfield we decided to keep going North and visit the Science Museum in Davis. It doesn't open until 2 pm so we killed time at a nearby park that we found courtesy of my seeing eye dog Garmin. We had lunch on the picnic benches and then I let the kids play on the equipment.

Hunter, ever enthusiastic, went headfirst into play mode which would have been fine except that everything was wet from the rain. Hunter thought it was funny to get his bottom wet and did everything in his power to make himself more and more wet. When he went down the slide through standing cold puddles I had enough of watching. I marched him into the bathroom and had him stand there with his pants under the hand driers.

He decided being wet wasn't nearly as fun as he thought.

We got over to the museum just as it opened and stayed right till closing time. I'm sure more people would go except the hours are terrible. 2 pm to 4:30 pm.

The main draw for the children was the air flow exhibit that I'd never noticed on previous visits. A big fan was placed beneath a plastic column. The children made helicopters and put them into the wind tunnel and watched them blow up and out the top.

The Aquarium reopens!

We went to the Steinhart Aquarium today with Grandma. We usually go on our field trips on Thursdays and so I felt like it was a Thursday all day. I suppose it has something to do with habit or conditioning. Pavlov's dog...etc.

Every part of the new building and exhibits were spectacular! The one point of disappointment is that they are not yet reciprocal with all the other science museums and so our passes didn't work. As the singular negative point...I'd say that not bad at all! We arrived shortly after 10 and stayed until 3:30. We didn't see everything. There was a Tropical Rainforest exhibit in the middle of the building that the children were immediately drawn to. From the line to get into the habitat you could look down through the water and see the basement level where people were walking underneath. Hunter was especially excited to go "underwater". The tempureature got hotter and hotter as we progressed up all four levels of the rainforest habitat. It seems rather ironic to me that such a hot place is necessary to keep the rest of the world cool. The trees absorb the CO2 and produce oxygen keeping the ecosystem and the planet balanced just so. The butterflies thrive in that warm climate.
After the rain forest habitat we went to the basement and saw the fishes up close. There were color cards for the children to see all the different kinds of fish in the tank. We made a game to see if you could find all the fish and other animals on the card.

At the tide pool the children got to touch and hold starfish, sea urchins and abalone. A marine biologist explained how some starfish are predatory and some are scavengers. They eat by turning their stomachs inside out and dissolving their food with the digestive juices.

As a child I had seen some show about sea anemones and how they ate. My mom took us to an aquarium, and at the tide pool they had some in the deeper parts that weren't meant to touch. I feel bad about it now, but I took a star fish and put it into the sea anemone. Sure enough, it folded it up and ate it. I wonder if the staff was confused when they realized they were missing a starfish.

Rather than bring sandwiches with us I brought a whole loaf of bread, peanut butter and strawberry jelly. I made sandwiches on the spot. It seems to work out better that way especially if somebody wants more than one. We must be quite the sight! Since my mom came with us there are actually a few pictures of me, too. I just went through our picture files and since I'm usually the one taking the pictures, I'm in very few of them over the last five years.

The Alligator pond was just as I remembered it from our outings years ago. The railing was exactly the same. I suspect they took it out very carefully from the previous building to reuse it in the new one. There were two alligators that we saw. A green one and an albino one. Neither one was moving, but the kids all thought that the white one was fake. I tried to explain that it was albino and very much real. When we got home and reviewed the pictures I took they still thought it was fake.

Lawrence Hall of Science

We went to the Lawrence Hall of Science today. The kids had seen a commercial on TV that they had a new engineering exhibit. It looked super fun and so I told them we could go.

Each time we visit a particular museum after it's been awhile it's great to see how they take the best parts of their gig and improve upon it. Some of our favorite exhibits from last time were re-arranged to a permanent configuration. They added a kindergarten and under area that the children were immediately drawn to.

The large blocks that they had in this area were intended for construction of various assigned projects, but as it turned out they were mostly used for jumping onto. Ethan was creative and he and another boy made a bridge, a house and a tower, but ultimately they were frustrated because Elle kept knocking everything down with speed and exuberance.

Hunter was invited to participate in a special language study for 3 and 4 year olds by a Berkley graduate student. He was part of the control group so he didn't get asked any funny questions, but he did get to talk to a bunch of puppets. As a thank-you he was given a special Lego block with Berkley's logo on it.

We had lunch outside on a bench and enjoyed the most BEAUTIFUL view. Rather than make the sandwiches beforehand I brought bread, peanutbutter and grape jelly and made them right there. It worked out better that way since everybody wanted two sandwiches rather than just the usual one.

Outside were several exhibits to show the children how water flows, earthquake fault lines, how wetlands were naturally replaced by settling sediment from flowing rivers. The children's favorite was the river where you could change the flow of the water.

The visiting engineering exhibit, which was advertised on television was better than I expected. There were several booths at the front of the room in which you were given an engineering problem, materials to solve it an a hint in the right direction.

I worked on the paper bridge where the span of the bridge was longer than the length of a peice of paper. The bridge also had to be strong enough to hold several wooden blocks. I first started by orienting overlapping paper in the most obvious flat way, but it had no strength to support the blocks. I turned my papers sideways and laid a platform across. Voila!! I was so pleased with myself.

Seriously...an entire exhibit dedicated to engineering. It was like CANDY!

Elle, who has been doing very good potty-training with no accidents the past few days got so absorbed in a project that she peed her pants right in the middle of what she was doing. Yup, she's my girl!!! (The engineering interest, not the pants peeing) Fortunately, I brought an extra diaper.

Ethan's favorite project was the airplanes. You were given the task of flying a paper airplane though a triangle placed about 20 feet in the air. There were step-by step instructions how to build different models. Once you had your plane built there was a testing site where the nose of the plane was clipped in place and then a button activated the wind tunnel. You could see if your design flew well or needed modifications. Ethan got it through the triangle on the second try.

Last day out before four

In the summer time the Chabot Space and Science center has a children's Discovery Lab open during the week. We've gone during the regular school year and been disappointed that the hours for the Discovery Lab were open on weekends only. Since nothing has been happening on my end, I decided to get the kids out one last time before the baby decided to come. We saw a really great movie about all the planets made especially for kids. I learned something new!

We spent the rest of the morning in the Discovery Lab. The art project table was the biggest draw, but also the source of the most whining from both Ethan and Hunter who felt a creative block in creating what exactly they had in mind.

They also had a light table for tracing images. Since we had just seen the Cardboard Rocketship movie they were drawn more to the space images rather than the dinosaur tracings. Hunter found the children's microscope and looked at various slides. Ethan played with the in house computer.



Ethan has said for some time that he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. We encourage him as much as possible. He's told me that when he goes to the moon he's going to bring me back a moon rock. Cool! The only thing he says that he really doesn't like is that astronauts have to wear diapers.

We explored the astronaut exhibit which had on display a few examples of space food. Before we left we got some astronaut ice-cream which I've never had before and have always wanted to try. It tasted the same, but the temperature and texture were different. Ethan said he didn't like it. Elle and Hunter liked it well enough, probably because they didn't have any ice-cream like expectations. It was sugar. It was good enough for them.

The children got in line for a taste of getting around in space. The person was supposed to lie down and maneuver using only the levers on the walls or above them. There was an inner city summer group ahead of us. One of the little boys looked at Elle and then asked me, "Why did you dye her hair?" I didn't. "You mean it grows that way?!?" Yup. "Do you have a son?" I pointed to Ethan. "Oh."

The favorite exhibit by far was the ball vortex where you take wooden or metal balls and spin them around in a funnel. As they get closer to the bottom they go faster and faster. If they're high enough up someone is likely to grab your ball and wreck the pattern. The best part was getting the balls out of the bottom and starting them again.

As we were leaving Ethan saw an experiment in the yard where you could launch your own water rockets. He was very excited at the prospect. You had to put a nose on and cut out fins. Ethan and Hunter did theirs all on their own. I helped Elle with hers despite plenty of "do it myself" proclamations. The rockets were launched via pressurized air. It was simple, yet spectacular for the children. It was a great thing to end our day on.