This weekend Eleanor and Henry took a trip down to the Museum of Science and Industry to see their new Lego exhibit. Eleanor wasn’t excited about going, and said it was going to be the “Worst day ever” and “Lego’s were for babies” – which is odd because she loves Legos. After visiting the museum and having a great time she admitted that she just wanted to stay play at home, which is why she said all of those things. They had lots of cool Lego structures, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Giant Pyramid of Egypt, the museum itself, the Disney Castle, the Frank Lloyd Wright waterfall house, the International Space Station, the St. Louis Arch and the Burj Khalifa. They also had some fun hands on building exhibits, most with Legos, although one had the kids try to build a bridge with a single sheet of paper. While we were there, we also checked out a few other exhibits that we hand’t done before, like the submarine and the mine shaft. One really cool moment was at the chick hatchery – we happened to walk past that first and we were the only ones there and all the chicks were sleeping. One by one they each woke up and then came running over to the kids (perhaps expecting their breakfast). Mom and the kids walked around the the hatchery and all the chicks followed them peeping along.
Another fun development this week was Henry’s progress on the scooter. We had some nice weather so he and Mom hit some parks while Eleanor was at school. He has really gotten the hang of it, and even strikes a “one leg up” pose as he is gliding, holding one leg perpendicular to the ground. Eleanor has also really improved, so I think it is time to get another scooter so that they can have races.
Earlier in the week, Eleanor got to asking Mom and Dad a bunch of questions about Star Wars. There are a couple of girls in her class who are really into it, and Eleanor was pretty curious. So, we ordered the “Little Golden Books” set of 6 books (one for each movie, minus the latest one) and on Saturday afternoon we started in. I gave Eleanor the choice of reading them in chronological order or release date order, and she chose chronological, so we started with Jar-Jar Binks. Eleanor was hooked and by bedtime we only had two books left. We made it to the last one, and Eleanor was skimming ahead while we were waiting for Henry, and came across a picture of Darth Vader with his helmet removed – and she got really scared and decided that she didn’t want to read the last one, and in fact wanted to give all the books away. Ha! I was quite surprised that she had made it that far, with all of the people dying along the way, especially Padme – but all of that was no problem. We eventually got her calmed down and she was relieved to find out that Darth Vader turned good in the end. Of course, that night she came into our room around midnight and said she couldn’t stop thinking about Star Wars and wanted to sleep with us. So, I’m not sure we are ready for the movies quite yet, but at least she doesn’t want to give away the books anymore. Henry, for his part, was only marginally interested in the whole affair, but the next day he was a very happy participant in our driveway re-enactment using lacrosse sticks as light sabers. Surprisingly, Eleanor wanted to be Darth Vader :)
