This morning began not with peaceful coffee and the newspaper.  Not with a quiet baby eating breakfast while Mama sat and read.  No.  It began with me attempting those things but instead, participating in a contest of wills over OATMEAL. 

I took my coffee and paper to the porch, it was such a beautiful morning/weatherwise.  I carried the high chair out.  I put Sarah in it.  I made oatmeal, two bowls.  I sat Sethie by me like a big boy, in a chair and put a placemat and his oatmeal in front of him.  I sat down to feed Sarah hers and read the paper at the same time but no.  Seth took one bite of his oatmeal and said, EW!  I thought it was because I had sliced (for the first time ever) a banana on his oatmeal.  Okay, fine.  At least eat the oatmeal.  I gave him a bite of just oatmeal and told him to swallow it.  He held his big bite-full in his mouth…..and looked at me…..

and held it in there for half an hour.  It was his very strong will against mine.  Since I am his Mama, I know best and I knew that he simply had to submit to this big (yet, actually quite small, really) bite of yucky oatmeal.  Meanwhile, Sarah was eating all hers like a champ.

I tried giving him juice thinking he would wash it down.  Wouldn’t you know, he sipped that juice very carefully and didn’t swallow the oatmeal!  Okay, so it got to be half an hour later and I really wanted to just move on to other things so I went in the house and got a few chocolate chips and gave them to him.  He swallowed (FINALLY) the oats to eat the chips and that was that.  It was actually a very quiet half an hour, since he couldn’t talk.   

After that victory, I felt ready to go on an adventure so we left the house and drove to the science center.  (A very short sentence, but please know that a lot of preparations had to be made to actually get out the door!  And I still forgot the Ergo)………

The science center is a lot of fun for all age groups (very important when you have littles, middles, and teens).  Right off the bat there are some awesome water tables.  The children can put balls in the water and watch what they do, or where they travel.

Seth loved it.  He kept saying “OH!” in his little boy yelling voice.  So happy.

Sarah was nervous and shook a little when I first put her down.  She did not know WHAT was going on. 

The ball traveled down the ramp, into the tube, and then UP! the tube, pushed by water.  He did it again and again…..

Elevator shot.  The side is all glass so you can watch yourself go very high up or go back down….

We spent some time in a natural disaster room learning all about tornados, tsunamis, volcanoes, and other such terrible disasters.  It was all very fascinating but sad, too, because of the poor people who died in them.  My favorite part about it was the surround video of a tornado.  Someone put a camera down in the path of a tornado and then ran.  So the viewer got to experience what it looked and sounded like to be in one.  Also, they had a lot of artifacts/pieces of wreckage from actual disasters that the kids could see.  They took pictures of the objects in the midst of the wreckage so you could see what happened to it and see the object, too.  (A door, a stop sign, etc). Photography wasn’t permitted.

We went into a dark space exploration room, too.  I got to lay down in a reclining booth with Caleb and Seth and it was so relaxing.  I almost didn’t want to get up again.  Smile.

We spent some time eating lunch.  I had a yummy black bean salad and half a sandwich.  The icy coke perked me up.  The kids were done eating way before I was but I sat there and enjoyed every bite.

Seth had to go shirtless like a little bum because he got so wet at the water tables….He and Sarah played with a little ball-run thing…you let go of the ball at the starting point and it goes through all these bells and whistles and ramps and drops, to the end.  That is, if Sarah does not grab the ball first.

Sarah ended up, after a while, falling off this little platform, poor baby!!!  She was very upset!

We sat down to some brain teaser puzzles, Ethan, Jacob, Grace, and me.  I said, “Okay, we’re not leaving until one of us solves the puzzle.”  I usually get impatient and move on but I worked and worked and I did it!  I solved my puzzle.  It was a bunch of blocks (not square, they were joined together in odd shapes) that you had to put together into a cube.

Grace worked on hers and after a small suggestion from the lady, she put her pieces together into the shape of a cross.

Jacob also received a very subtle, very small hint, and then was able to solve his.

Poor E did not get to finish his, as I did not want to be there any longer.  It was stressful at times, which reminds me that I really must sit and have a serious discussion with my children about the rules of “field trips”.  It’s just too easy for one or two or three (or more) to forget, and wander off alone and out of my sight.

Here they are, in a rare moment, all together.  Love this.  The views out the windows are incredible, too.  But watching the children think and play?  Priceless.

I let them each pick out a very small treat from the shop and then home again/home again/jiggety jig, we went. 

Davy picked out a magnifying glass.  So it was fun to look for bugs on our lawn.

Here is a picture of me and my Caleb, who is probably, at this moment, still wearing his paper bracelet from our fun time.

His little treasure was a lego spaceship.  All his very own.

Grace climbed a tree and took a picture of a big fat baby robin almost old enough to move out.  But the parents are not ready to let go, yet.  They flew around making quite the racket as Grace snapped her picture.

Caleb likes to gather eggs now.  He does it every chance he can,  and laughs at Red because she’s broody and makes the most pathetic and startling noises at him when he gets the eggs.

So, when he said, “Let’s go get the eggs!” we did just that.

We fed them, too, and I got a picture at the moment when George was letting out a big crow.  He’s quite something.

But that’s not all.  We also went to our library this afternoon, to the annual book sale.  And then, to the store for deli meat and cheese for a sandwich dinner night. (we ate outside)

These are the books I got (only three!)

I can’t say that I’ve actually dreamed of living in a lighthouse with my love.  I have dreamed of living on an island, however (thanks to Baby Island, one of my favorite childhood books)…so I can’t wait to read this!  Doesn’t the lady look so pleasant and nice?  I am going to start this one tonight, I hope it’s as good as I think it will be. 

Last but not least, bath before nigh-nights!

Isn’t she adorable?