Monday, February 27, 2006

A Trip to the Museum

Last weekend we took the kids to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. This museum is downtown Raleigh, about a 20 minute drive for us on Saturday morning. The best part of the whole excursion was that it was free. There were some interesting things for the kids, like live animals (just a few), but most of the things to see were large displays. One of the things Austin and Lindsey enjoyed the most were the many dinosaur skeletons.



Lindsey sticks her head inside the head of a T-rex.
















Here are the kids in a bat cave--looking up at stuffed bats.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Lindsey-isms

As a four-year-old, Lindsey is at the place in life where she's starting to put things together. The byproduct of greater understanding must be broader assertions and questions. At least I hope that is the measuring stick of learning. If it is, she's doing really well. Here are some recent questions and sayings over the last couple of weeks that have made us laugh.

  • We have a tradition of replacing a lost tooth under the pillow with a dollar. I use the term "tradition" lightly because only Austin of our three kids has lost any teeth yet. However, very recently when he lost another tooth, he woke up in the morning to find a dollar under his pillow. (I believe he really thinks there is a tooth fairy). We generally let him spend his dollar(s, over the last few months) at the dollar store. That is a place that is pretty easy to understand for a kid. We decided this time around to let Lindsey have a dollar from her bank too so she wouldn't feel left out. As we were pulling away from our townhouse in the van Lindsey shouts out, "Wait! Mommy, I forgot my ticket!" "Ticket?" "Yes, my ticket for the dollar store." "You mean your dollar?" "Yeah, my ticket."
  • Recently I was explaining to Austin why it's important to brush your teeth in front down below and above the gum line. When he asked why it was important I said (hope I was right) that sometimes little pieces of food get down in between your teeth and gums and it's important to brush them out before bacteria begins to grow. Lindsey, with the most serious look on her face asked "You mean little pieces of food like sprinkles?"
  • Janet was reading her a book one day and Lindsey had to go to the bathroom. She asked, "Mommy, could you pause it so I can go potty?"
  • Last night as we had the Olympics on, she watched with interest as the long ski jumpers were doing their thing. "Daddy," she asked, "Do you think sometime I could try that?" "Sure," I said.
  • One more-- and I don't know how I forgot this one, but I'm adding it now after my original post. One evening we were watching the evening news and the weather forecaster was giving his predictions. When the segment was over, Lindsey said to me, "Daddy, that man kinda looked like you!" "He did?" I asked. He was African-American. "Yeah," she said. "He has that little hair around his mouth like you do--except his skin is brown."
Here is Lindsey all dressed up for a princess birthday party. She was so excited she could hardly stand it. She talked about it all week. I'll put some more Lindsey dress pictures on Flickr.