I moved the car at 8 and August woke up when I got back at 8:10. I took a shower, and then he told Carly that he wanted to stay at the children’s museum forever. He was also talking like a robot through the morning, although I’m not sure what prompted that. We packed up to get ready to go, and he sat in the rocking chair drinking the mango smoothie drink from a straw. He wanted me to hold it, but I encouraged him to hold it himself. Carly brushed his teeth, then he brushed some more. He sneezed, then said “You did sneezing music?” He grabbed his stroller and said “Now, ready to go.” We walked to the end of the all and went to Pure Fare for breakfast at 9:05. I got the kale frittata and Carly got a yogurt cup. And I got a real macchiato.
Got back just before 9:30. August kicked his shoes off as Carly carried him to the bathroom. He’s so trained to take his shoes off. We grabbed our bags, walked to the car, and drove off at 9:40. We made it to the Please Touch museum, paid our $57 dollars, and started playing at 10:10. He started in the water area, then went to the pond area. From there he saw the carousel and wanted to ride, so I went and bought a ticket for that and found them in the Adventure Camp. It kind of had random stuff in it – a telegraph, a flagpole you can raise and lower a flag, and a handle you can turn to light a lightbulb. August saw wires from it, followed the wires with his eyes around the room, and realized it also made a propellor mounted above the door turn.
We went to the carousel and I rode it with him. He sat on a middle horse. He was a little quiet as it started up and went up and down, but he liked it. I talked about how he was making a sine wave through the air, and we discussed how it was going up and down and how the pieces all went together as a machine. When we got off, he told Carly “I likes the up and downness.”
Next, we found a blue blocks area. It was like the area at the children’s museum in Seoul, but bigger. It felt really odd not taking our shoes off – it was the one place where they really should have people take them off, as the blocks were looking rather dingy. He rolled around on his tummy on some round ones when he saw someone else doing it, waved around a long one, swordlike, and started to make a sculpture. Another kid came and grabbed part of his sculpture. Carly got the part back, but he seemed a little bothered by it and asked to go somewhere else.
From there it was down to the Alice in Wonderland area. This was really cool. Would have been cooler if he had remembered the movie a bit better, it’s been awhile. But he really liked painting the roses red, sat down at the tea party table, and wandered around. There was the other end of the pipe that you can speak through from the Adventure Camp room, and Carly went up to the other end. August was really excited by all of this, and was screeching and covering his eyes when he spotted Carly going up the ramps or in the room. Thought I caught much of that on video as she came back down, but then realized it wasn’t recording. Very funny though. At one point, in the maze part, he crawled under a wall and disappeared. I thought he had crawled to where Carly was, but he hadn’t. Found him back in the roses area. It all felt a little odd, and appropriate for the area.
Then into the area commemorating the 1876 expo. I really liked the displays about the expo and the big diorama of it. August really liked the model train and pulling the rope to make the bell ring. August and I headed to the town area, where he played with the brick conveyor belt for several minutes. At 11:40 I then went and read, sitting on the benches of the model train station in the middle of the floor, while they kept playing. They came over after awhile and ate some dried mango as a snack, then headed to the bathroom and back to playing.
I went to the bathroom after awhile and then found them upstairs in more of the town play area. They had spent a lot of time in the grocery store area downstairs, and then with the backhoes upstairs. I found them waiting to get in the car. Played there for awhile, then we went over to the ice cream shop, where August and other kids kept making really big ice cream cones for Carly. We also went in the bus and he and Carly pretended to drive. He said “If I turn to the left there’s no cars. It’s clear over there…I hitted the pigeon.” “I want to hit a kid.” The last came, I think, after a bigger kid ran up against the windshield as if he had been it. Very amusing.
We went to the cafeteria and got three pieces of pizza for us, and a fruit punch drink for August. We went to the tables near the Statue of Liberty to eat. August and I went over to the Statue of Liberty sculpture, but he was disappointed to find that you couldn’t go in it. While I’d been reading the signs there I noticed two typos in them.
Carly then sat and read while I went back with him to the water area. He basically spent the next 20 to 30 minutes playing with the lock, making it fill and empty, having boats go up and down. Even when the immediate area got crowded with bigger kids, August kept his nose in, pushing through to put ducks and boats in it. I gave him several reminders that we were almost done, and at 2 we started to get going. August said he wanted to go back to the children’s museum next time – he meant tomorrow, but I said maybe when we come back next year.
It was about 2:20 when we drove off. I had chosen a route through norther Philadelphia that would be a bit faster than on the way down, but still have us drive the 611, the scenic part, for the northern portion. Even with Google’s help the beginning was confusing, with Google taking seemingly random back streets. Near the beginning August started singing loudly, and Carly told him to let dada concentrate on driving. When we got out on an actual highway a half hour later or so, he asked “You can sing now?” And he asked Carly to sing about dragons.
About 3:30 we stopped at a Chevy dealership. Third time a charm, as this one had Sonic hatchbacks. We checked one out in the showroom, then a guy took us to one outside so we could see the trunk, as the one inside didn’t have a battery in it. We generally liked it, although the driver’s seat seemed a little low.
Carly drove from there. August and I did a lot of the pretending to sleep and wake me up game. We read George Gets a Cold and watched videos in the Musical Instruments book – the first time in quite awhile. And we watched Sarah and Duck. The first time I actually saw several of them, as I’d only heard them.
We got back to the house at 5:45. He seemed hesitant for a moment, but was then right back to playing with Vivian and Colin. For some reason he and Vivian wanted milk from baby bottles. As he got it he said “I really want a bottle…I want to be the oldest.” They then played outside for a long time, doing a good job of taking turns with the hose. The big playground that they’re going to install had arrived, and they had set up the slide as a sort of waterslide into the kiddie pool. August wouldn’t go down it, but liked playing with the water. They went over to the pumpkin plants with Cassie at one point, then he got upset about the stuffed animals that Vivian had. He wasn’t eating dinner, probably because he was so excited with playing. Carly and I slipped off one by one to eat dinner out in the RV. He eventually ate some broccoli and tofu that Carly heated for him, although Colin ate more, taking all of it when August wouldn’t eat it.
August nursed, then Vivian came in and they kicked us out: “Kids only!” Vivian got paper and crayons and they started drawing pictures, and August would bring them out and give them to Carly or Cherie. The ones for Carly were all talking machines (like the tube they had spoken through at the children’s museum): “you talk through it…It goes around there and through the lines…I used your favorite kind of green.”