Saturday, July 28: Dada/Zinnie adventure around Concord

Carly left round 7 and went and got coffee at The Works Cafe, then caught a Lyft drive out to where her workshop was on Compassionate Listening, at NH Conference Church. August woke up at 8:28. He asked for Carly and I reminded him she was at her class and we were going to the science center. He said “Alrighty.” He got down and lay on the floor for awhile, then went to the bathroom. He then had a cereal bar and watched Magic School Bus while I took a shower and packed.

We took out our backpacks, then checked out and left at left 9:55. We left our car at the hotel and walked into town, to The Works Cafe. At the corner a big fire truck went through the intersection. He asked, “You think that fire truck was out on a call?” That was cool, but it reset the lights at the intersection, apparently, and we’d already realized the lights take forever up here. Waited a couple more minutes with other people, then crossed. I realized it was 9:59 and ran up to the clock tower. We hadn’t heard it, but the clock said 10:01 and we’d missed the ringing.

At The Works we ordered a classic smoothie, an egg and cheese sandwich, and a latte. We sat outside and looked at all of the fire trucks across the street (a ladder truck, a hose truck, an ambulance, and a regular truck) and discussed how fires are fought.

August looked at his smoothie cup and asked what ‘chill’ meant. We discussed its meanings, and I suggested it as the word of the day. He then said that ‘development’ was the word of the day. I realized he meant from the Hilde book, where there is a housing development in the woods.

We finished eating and got to the car at 10:40. He whispered “You know what I built at the hotel? A 9000 story garbage can that when you say open it opens and when you say closed it closes.”

We drove to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. At one point I was able to tell him about McAuliffe and the Challenger as we looked at a photo of the crew. Anyway, we got in just at 11. Started by making a stop motion video, then played with these rotating things that make a rhythm. He danced to that. His favorite activity, which we came back to multiple times, was making pictures with gears – sort of a Spirograph meets a turntable. Did some of those, then went to the space area. Upstairs we was the floating balls, Newton’s pendulum, and a exercise bike that was about exercising on a mission to Mars.

We went back downstairs when he spotted things he hadn’t done. Played with the scales, then headed to find a bathroom. That took us down the hall to the planetarium. He then piloted a shuttle lander simulator once, then we played with wooden blocks. I did the challenges, while he was more creative (a “Tiny zoo”). Back to the simulator one more time after it cleared out.

Then back to the rotating rhythm thing and gear spirographs. He made one for Carly. A cool sound frequency thing followed, and a different Spirograph sort of thing, using a screen and a sort of digital drawing board. A shadow activity, then a video thing that has you walk a certain pace and takes a video, then has you walk half speed and speeds up the video to see them in sync. Some more gear and chains stuff, then a running thing. A cool globe, more scales, more wooden blocks…it kept going. The final thing we played with was three chairs that show the effects of doubling. It starts with a small chair, then a chair that is twice the size, then a huge chair that is twice the size of that. You can measure them different ways.

As we walked out, we went to the gift shop. He immediately saw a kit for making a catapult and loved it. He then saw one of those black hole donation things, where the coins roll in a circle. He remembered he had found some pennies in the car so we went to get them. We found 2 quarters and 4 pennies. So then I told him I had spotted a penny squished in the gift shop. We had done one at the natural history museum the day before as well.

We went in and squished a penny, then did the black hole. He remembered the catapult. It was cool, and my only hesitation was luggage. We got it, and then a small liquid hourglass – something he could actually play with in the car.

We got in the car and had a snack and this time he did the reading game on his iPad. We left at 1:50. The first time he had held my phone and watched the directions. We went west of town to the Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Park. Spent about 15 minutes outside looking at sculptures. He wouldn’t let me by the two hanging iron monkeys sculpture. We went inside and looked around. A lot of cool stuff. We did some talking about materials as we looked around.

We then drove to the southeast and arrived at the Audubon at 3. We went inside and looked at the reptile room. Living reptiles, but lots of taxidermied animals as well. We went to the bathroom, and discussed the word ‘development’.

He requested I tell him another story. We first went to the car and got Cheerios. He said “Dada, I love you…Dada, I really like you.” We started walking, and he requested the story again. He told me “At restaurants, it’s actually a Z story.” So I told a Z story about meeting an elf in a cafe called Z’s Cafe. We got down to a bench by Turkey Pond and sat there. He counted the “gummies” on the bench. These were the remnants of (I think) moss patches, which (I think) looked like chewing gum spots to him.

The place closed at 4, though I don’t know if that applied to the trails. So we got going. He led on way back at first, and almost ran into a garter snake on the way back. We watched it slither off. He then asked for a Zinnie story, in which Ms. Robin asks for help for tools.

We got back at 4, and he figured out the controls for the moon roof and we drove with it open. He was then telling himself a story about someone named Georgie, though I didn’t catch any details.

We had time until we picked Carly up after 5, so we drove over to Rollins Park. He wasn’t too enthused about playing at the playground, but we ended up walking the edge of it, working on our balance. He was holding his water bottle to his chest with one hand, and holding his hair back with the other. He played on the play structure a little, figuring out how to go up a shaky cylinder ladder, then came down a slide.

We could see the big thunderstorm coming, and lighting off in the distance. We kept checking the weather app and radar to see how far away it was. We headed back to the car at 4:45 and the rain hit about 2 minutes later.

It was quite a downpour as I drove to the church. The long day and the sound of the rain put him right asleep, and he slept from 4:52 to 5:10 when Carly woke him up. A woman at the workshop helped her get to the car with an umbrella.

I drove at first, along the river on 3A. We kept taking 3 south, and had to stop when August bit his tongue eating carrot while he played the reading game. We drove until we stopped for dinner at the Lobster Boat restaurant in Merrimack.

We had a nice dinner of lobster bisque, alfredo pasta with shrimp, and a couple of salads. I had a beer. August ate a lot of shrimp until he got one with some shell on it.

As we left it was pouring, but the radar info said it was supposed to stop soon. So we waited in the entrance. Sure enough, after 5 minutes it basically turned off.

Carly took over driving from there. We read Hilde Cracks the Case #4. He then watched Sarah and Duck. He stopped watching the lemon cafe one because he remembered that the cafe closes before they can order and he doesn’t like that. He then played the feelings game from Sesame Street, the human body machine game.

We got to the hotel and up to room right at 10. He liked the lemon water in his water bottle, which we’d filled from his cup at the restaurant. Earlier, he’d had pineapple infused water from the hotel when we left. Carly took a shower and I made the complimentary ba
g of popcorn.

We read Captain Underpants and ate popcorn. We read most of the preview of the Roscoe Rules book until we stopped at 10:45. He was asleep a little after 11.

Flying the shuttle:

Sculpture:

Audubon hike:

Park:

Rain: