At the Hands-on Museum

Making a huge bubble. One must slowly raise the bar. You can see the bubble billowing. She wanted to do this repeatedly.

Dressing a doll. You can see that her hair is finally growing in with quite a bit of Naomi's red

Water play

She loved all the various ball chutes

The Cancer Support Community had a day at the Hand-on Museum. I could bring one child. Which one? The boys being older would be more receptive to learning. They loved going to the Boston Children's Museum when they lived there. But Maya's experiences are sadly limited so I chose her. What I should do is just get a family membership which would let me bring 2 guests then the kids could take turns going with me (and theoretically Steve though he isn't a fan of these activities).

Maya was at first overwhelmed by all the bright lights and chaos of the other kids running around. She especially hates it when strange adults try to talk to her. She just buries her head in my leg. But she soon got into the spirit of discovery with all the ball chutes: collecting balls in buckets then putting them through various holes and watching their paths. They have 2 separate water play areas: one in the pre-school room and the other with the big kids. She could launch boats and fish and pour water through various devices. This entertained her for quite a while. Her favorite activity was making big bubbles. Downside: reminders to let others have a turn.

Back at the homefront, we finally got a dvd of all the super 8 mm movies we took from 1981 to about 1986. Some of the labels we had on these 3 minute long reels had fallen off so we didn't know what order to put them into. I had carefully put the still labelled ones together in order but I see this was ignored. What I wish I didn't include: movies of my friend and I trying to improve our swimming techniques. We critiqued each other but seeing the mistakes one makes is much more helpful. Very boring to see them now aside to admire how thin I was. Also Steve's and my softball games. At least he got me making a rare hit and a steal on film.  We also had Shanna's dance recital on tape. In the spirit of exposing my kids to all that life has to offer, I enrolled her in a tap dance class despite some co-ordination issues on her part. The instructor, wanting to say something positive about each of her students, told me how adept Shanna was at remembering the names of all the moves (too bad she couldn't quite execute them) and perhaps rather than re-enrolling her in tap,  I should consider modern dance. But on our dvd, there she is looking very cute. She also did everything in sync. I never had looked at the film and must have spent my time at the recital burying my head but she was just fine. Included in this series was Josh's birth, shot into the mirror and much blurrier than the original  That is a good thing. Perhaps it is tame enough to show his to-be wife once she has Baby Five. There were also several scenes with my mother's group. Hard to believe these adorable toddlers are now adults.

Still winter here. I am debating whether I want to run as I feel a cold coming on or maybe I am just malingering.