Devin at Music Class and the Park

Devin has been doing a "Musikgarden" class.  He really enjoys it and sings some of the songs at home.

 He was still gearing up when the drums came out.  He's not really the "Boom, boom, boom" type most of the time, but he did try to sing the song recently at home.

 "Peek-a-boo" is a big hit.

 He also really likes these sticks.  By this time he was ready to bust a few moves.

 We've had about one really warm day so far this spring.  Devin and I went to the park to enjoy the sunshine.  He climbed on the equipment, went down a few slides and gave me a few heart attacks.

Like his brother at this age he's pretty interested in mulch.  He's slowly becoming convinced that there isn't any chocolate under the mulch.

The big story with Devin is how his language is developing.  It's fun and exciting to watch.  He loves to repeat what he hears, picking up phrases like "What the heck?" and "I love you."  He has been learning to count for a while now and has now decided that 1-10 is not enough for him - he routinely tries to count to 20 although he skips quite a few numbers.  He repeats phrases from books and has been learning all the verses from the Iza Trapani version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." 

I keep thinking that I'd like to document this stage because it flies by so fast that it's hard to remember later.  Mostly I've been doing that on FB so other people can enjoy the fun too.  It's faster than trying to find a time to sit down at the computer and do a whole blog post - especially since we got Smart Phones.  In fact I've hardly sat down at the desktop lately.

Wrapping up Break with Literacy

Here is a picture of a puzzle we worked on during Spring Break.

Today was "Literacy in the Park."  For some reason this is usually not held in a park.  This year it was held in the big basketball stadium.  The featured author was Laura Numeroff of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie fame.  We managed to get there just as she was starting her presentation.

 She showed pictures of herself as a child.  She talked about her inspiration for some of her books and also about the amount of rejection she's faced.  Considering how successful it's been it's kind of surprising to learn that it was rejected nine times.

 Devin wasn't too interested in the presentation.  He spotted some people with actual cookies and contemplated taking them but thankfully was a little too shy.

 Here's the author with the mouse.  Her mascot, I guess.

 Afterwards we checked out the exhibits.  Liam made a grocery list and picked out some items, although they didn't have some of the main ones - like rice.

 Here he's trying to get the "resources" of chocolate chips out of the cookies.  I seem to remember a presentation like this from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) in the Park.

 While his brother was mining for chocolate Devin found a ball to play with.  It had something to do with a group that was promoting language literacy, but he didn't care.

 Then we found "physical education literacy" which by this point in the day turned out to be an empty gym with a few basketballs in it.  Devin LOVED it.

 Liam practiced a few soccer moves, but I had a hard time getting good pictures because it was kind of dark and he was moving pretty fast.

 Devin moved a little slower.  But he was no less enthused.  He was very sad when we had to say "bye-bye" to the ball.

Day at the Museum

We started at the Glass Pavilion, which we had not been to before.  We came in part way through a demonstration.  I started to take pictures, but Devin got restless, so I gave the camera to Liam.

 Liam:  He is getting the ball hot so he can shape it.

 Liam:  Now he is curving the ball.
Rachel:  He twirled the glass around when it was out of the furnace to keep it round.  He put it back in the heat a couple of times to warm it back up.

 Liam:  He used gravity to make the ball into a lamp shape.

 Liam:  Now he is twirling it while showing everyone the green mold.  The mold is the inside, I guess.

 Liam:  Now he is getting ready to break it off the pole.

 Liam:  Now he is burning the sharp end off the glass so he can carefully put it into the cooling device.

 Rachel:  The last thing he did before putting it into the cooling oven was to put a stamp on it to show that he was the one who made it.

 Rachel:  Devin was pretty inpatient in the stroller.  I figured that he couldn't do any harm in the Middle Ages display, so I let him out.  He loved it.  Even though the display was very dimly lit.

Liam:  I am trying to photo bomb mommy for taking Devin's picture but she is actually trying to take a picture of me.

Rachel:  I wanted to take a picture of the boys in front of this picture of "Lord Amherst."  I don't think this is the guy who started Amherst College.  He turns out to be an Englishman who went on a diplomatic trip to China but was unsuccessful in making a deal because he refused to "compromise."  The British were very happy with this.  So I guess politics hasn't changed much since the 1800's.

Also in this gallery I was informed that people are supposed to stay at least two feet from the exhibits.  Really I think it that case most of the galleries should be bigger.  And kids are not allowed to push strollers, only adults.  Now I know.  After that we found an approved location for snacking and let Devin out of the stroller again.

Liam:  Ay yi yi.  Devin keeps running away from me but I keep having to try to block him so he doesn't go off in random places in the museum.

Rachel:  This was the first time I used the GPS on my phone to try to get somewhere in the big city.  It worked pretty well for getting there except that it directed me to the parking across the street.  Which I guess was good because we probably wouldn't have seen the glass blowing otherwise.  BUT when we left that building we had to cross the street to get to the main museum.  And THEN I couldn't figure out how to get the stroller up the steps to the front doors.  Which turned out to be because they were locked (I discovered after picking up the stroller and lugging a very irate Devin up the stairs.)  It turns out you have to walk all the way around to the back of the museum to get in.  There's parking back there, but apparently the GPS doesn't know about it or doesn't know how to get to it.

When I asked him afterward Liam said his favorite parts were the spinning door and the Lego type blocks that smelled like sea weed.  They were actually made of green tea and were for sale in the museum store.  A three inch square box costs about $33.  As much as I love sustainable items....

We ate lunch at a nearby fast food place.  Then GPS failed me because it didn't tell me to turn right or left out of the parking lot - only "southeast."  Listen sweetie, the reason I'm using GPS is that I have no idea where southeast is.  So I went the wrong way.  But it got me turned around, only to fail to realize that the ramp it wanted me to take was closed.  I managed to straighten it out, though and we made it home.  Devin fell asleep, but by some miracle he fell back asleep after we got home.