Friday mornings you will typically find us at the science center, another one of our haunts that we frequent regularly. I love the science center (almost as much as the library) and have found another great group of community members that have befriended the kids. Stephen is always there to greet the kids excitedly when we walk in and is interested in whatever new stories the kids have for him that day ... whether it is a new hat, or what they ate for breakfast. And Donna will come out of her office in the back to say how cute the kids are typically, and then she'll say to us she'll meet us in a few minutes for our lesson. --- I often think of the phrase, "It takes a village to raise a child" and we have definitely found this support in our community! I feel like a lot of the people are surrogate family members. Ms. Kathleen, and Ms. Donna are the grandmother types .. Stephen an uncle, along with the aquatic center staff (I'll have to do another DITL later on that haunt) would fall under the categories of aunts and uncles. There are so many people in the community that love and care for my kids, that are excited when they're excited, and are eager to share with them their knowledge, it's a wonderful thing! -- sorry got side tracked, have I mentioned before that I love Pullman? :)
So.... before we leave for the Science Center... or anywhere for that matter ... Raya attends to her babies. She puts them down for a "nap" with her special blanket, and sometimes leaves them with a book to read or some play food to eat. She is very attentative and thoughtful ... and cute.
The kids have had such an urge lately to run. The sun is out and they just want to be free, I don't blame them, it has been a long winter ... they bolted out of the van door and went on a "nature walk" beside the science center.
Raya is terrified of her shadow, it's crazy! I'll never forget when she first saw her shadow. At first I didn't know what was wrong, she was stomping rapidly and started getting distressed .. then full blown hysterics pursued with intervals of stop and go running. She would run a little bit to get away from her shadow, and then stop and cry because it was following her. She refuses to walk if her shadow is following her... which means I get to carry her... but we made progress last Friday!! She is coming to grips that this shadow will not leave her alone and bent down and touched it (with some encouragement from me...). This is a huge step.
"Discovery starts here."
We go in and play until lesson time ... kids get their lily pads --
Seth and Levi found the lesson really interesting this week, it was about how to create fire. Ms. Donna was showing the need of oxygen by putting a glass jar over a lighted flame. The boys watched as the flame slowly went out as the oxygen in the jar ran out. Then there was a discussion on fire safety and why we stop, drop and roll.
Levi had a little incident after swim lessons on Thursday... I still don't know how it happened. Seth and Levi were running out of the locker room after swim practice (once again with the running) out towards the foyer ... so on the carpeted area. I'm walking Raya-paced and hear Levi just crying. A lady in the fitness room signals to me through the window that his nose is really bad. Yep, I find Levi with a bloody face. Nose bleeding from inside and out. Jeff and I noticed yesterday that his rug-burned nose was still bleeding slightly. Poor Levi.
Doing a math lab
We eat lunch at the science center so we don't have to go home before we take Seth to Montessori.
Raya likes to point to all the animals.
Favorite thing at the moment are the tiny little figurines. I love it because it's something that all the kids can do together. Seth and Levi were seperating the animals between continents for a bit
And Raya was lining up her little polar bears in a row.
We end our time with reading in the quiet room:
