Museum and Memaw

We went to the Fort Worth Science and History Museum yesterday. It was so much fun. Maggie has more fun every time she goes. I think as she gets older, she understands the various activities better. The pictures are out of order but you get the gist.

These are all from the AWESOME children's room. It's for kids under 8, I think, and it is so cool. She's playing inside and actual train car with this letter mat/puzzle.

 This is a magnet table. Here we are determining what is magnetic and what is not. She enjoyed this table.

This game is a maze and you "pull" the magnetized balls throw the maze with a magnet pen. Very cool.

Aw, the turtle. I have so far had NO success in explaining to Maggie that this dome is not a climbing apparatus. But at least the other kids haven't gotten the memo either.

This is the baby area. It has this little soft area and then spiders and snakes in cages built into the wall surrounding it. Maggie was fascinated by the tarantulas. 

This is also in the baby area. You push the buttons and it turns on a wind machine in the bottom that makes the objects in each area fly up.

This is the hospital area. It has this large ambulance with a real siren. Here is Maggie with one of the babies, waiting her turn to drive.

This thing looks kinda like a microscope but it's a camera. She was fascinated with putting things in front of the camera and watching them on the screen.

Driving the ambulance while wearing a doctor's jacket and holding a baby.

This is the dinosaur area. She loved this whole area. She's inside a dinosaur's footprint. She especially loved this. She was in and out the whole time we were in the room.

We walked into the hallway where there are lots of cool things and a worker at the museum gave us a tour of the area. It was so nice of him. Here she is putting coins into the spinny thing.

Oh my goodness, this thing was awesome. It actually created a tornado. Maggie wasn't too impressed but I was. Wow!

Here is Maggie exiting the kaleidoscope area. She wasn't tall enough to see and I didn't realize until she bailed.

This is the only "classroom" area Maggie is old enough to go in. It's a wind room. There are planes and hang glider demonstration areas and a huge wind area. This thing shoots air up and you put your creations in to see whether or not they will float to the top or over. She loved this and played and played. And actually did quite well. Although, she didn't actually make anything; she used left over creations.

Then we made the beach balls fly. So cool. They looked like they were floating in mid air because they stayed at the same height and didn't fall unless pushed. Here's Maggie, pushing.

Here's the poster of the Omni show we saw. Our membership includes a few Omni tickets and I plan on taking her to the G rated shows. It was awesome. This was the first Omni show she was actually able to stay in the theatre vs. going in the "quiet" room. It was a little scary for her in parts. The opening sequence is loud and dizzy-making so she didn't like that. The actual movie was very calm and slow. 

I've been talking to Maggie often about taking care of the Earth. I refer to it as making the Earth sick. She listens and cares about it. As she gets older, I'll talk to her more about the various things we do.

After we left the museum, we went over to Memaw's house. Maggie loves her Memaw. 

Yeah, out of order. We didn't go back to the museum. Here is the entrance to the kids' room. 

This is the grocery store area. It has little carts, food and a check out area. It's so cool and Maggie loves it.

Monday Movie 1

It turns out my new phone takes videos. Woo hoo! I blew off reading the manual so the first video actually never videoed but I got this one and it's great. She was so not interested in doing a second video so I just tried to make it not the focus. The first one was more of an interview. However, she really like watching her "movie," so I'm hoping she'll be more amiable to further videos. I want to ask her questions and get just her regular day-to-day life. Anybody have any ideas for questions I could ask her?

The Zoo and Memaw's house

Here's Maggie all ready to go on our adventure. At Laurie's suggestion, I bought us a zoo membership. It was very reasonable and it includes everything. I just told Mags we were going on an adventure.

We walked into the bird house and 3 people walked up to us and handed Maggie their left over bird seed sticks, which was cool cos I wasn't planning on buying one. It took us a while to find a bird that wanted to eat but when we did it was awesome. I held Maggie up (I can't believe I got such a good picture one-handed and without looking) and she gently held the stick near the bird. Well she poked a few times but overall did very well.

We had just looked at the kangaroos (napping, like every other animal) and Maggie announced she wanted to go home. Oh yeah, and she's lost her pet dog, Itsy Bitsy. She was positive she had left it by the rhinos so we hoofed it back over there but no Itsy Bitsy. I'm hoping someone will turn it into Lost and Found. We'll see. 

After that, we left to go visit Memaw. Stupidly, I was convinced for about an hour that I needed to go left (which I thought was south). So embarrassing. Finally I realized my mistake and we got there. We had a lot of fun playing with all the toys Memaw has gotten for Maggie and Ella and Grand Gene's grandson. 

Learning Time

I want to start posting the various crafts and educational activities Maggie and I do together. So here goes. 

We're working on -at words. Basically, I wrote the -at word and we sounded it out together. Wait, first we  established what at said. Then added the different beginnings to sound out the word. Then she "erased" the beginning letter with a q-tip dipped in water. I encouraged her to stay on the exact line to do her "magic trick." 

We created a birthday card for her Nana. I used a piece of construction paper, white paint, glitter and a glitter pen. First, I painted her hands white and then pressed them on the paper to make a heart. Then she put glitter on the heart. I wrote Happy Birthday, Nana and Love. Then I helped Maggie write her name. I tried to let her direct as much as possible.

This was a cool idea of what to do with extra construction paper scraps. I helped Maggie write her name really big on construction paper. I directed a lot on this one since it was so big. Then I put glue on one area at a time and let her put the scraps (I cut them up but next time I'd like her to cut) on the line. It's hard to tell at the end what's written so I figure it either needs bigger letters or smaller scraps.

Maggie and Ella at Grandpa's house

Maggie, Ella, Laurie, Grandpa and I were all at Grandpa's house. The girls had lots of fun pulling Maggie's suitcase back and forth across the house. It's so big compared to Ella; it was pretty funny watching her pull it.

Ella found Maggie's old bunny hat. So of course, we put it on her. Oh my Lord, she was so cute in it.

The Holy Grail, my friends. A sweet, good picture of the girlies.

I'm guessing Ella touched Maggie and this is Maggie's offended look. She is so dramatic.

Check out that hair. A lady can never have too many accessories!

Maggie took this picture of Grandpa (or 'Pa, as Ella calls him). Not bad.

Maggie and the Tomato

Maggie and I were in the kitchen and I was making her lunch. She walked over to the counter and saw a Roma tomato, picked it up and started eating it. She didn't eat the whole thing but she took several big bites. Hilarious!

March 24, 2012

I feel like no matter how often I write here, I'm always forgetting so many things she says and does, which makes me so sad. But that's life, I guess I just have to do what I can.

This morning Maggie was grabbing at her toosh and pubic area a lot. She's been very into self-exploration lately so I didn't think much about it. A while later I took her to the bathroom (which she's been very resistant about lately) and she told me it hurt when she went tee tee. RED SIGN! So, already I'm thinking I'll be calling the doctor first thing on Monday. Then the grabbing becomes scratching, deep scratching. Again when I took her to the bathroom, she says oh mommy, my heiny itches so bad. We immediately went to lay down for a nap and she was scratching hard and I could tell she was uncomfortable.

As soon as we got up, I called her doctor to get the nurse line. I told the nurse all that and she said to take her to urgent care, which surprised me but I did it.

On the way to the urgent care place, a motorcycle drove past us at a light and Maggie said, "Mommy, that motorcycle sounds like my toots." I laughed so hard. Damn, my kid is funny.

So we get to the urgent care place and everything was so slow. They did vitals, which took forever because Maggie couldn't hold still (or more likely didn't really understand). They finally had to put something on her toe.

After a while we got a room. The nurse came in and I told her again what was going on. She put bracelets on Maggie and me. Maggie decided to tell her that sometimes she puts her finger in her rear and then it smells bad. So, that was fun. Then, after another long while, the doctor came in. I told her the story again and she checked Maggie. She didn't see anything but she wanted a urine sample.

Oh my Lord, have you ever tried to get a urine sample from a 3 1/2 year old??? Insane. We had the "hat" that you just set in the toilet and she pees normally but she just couldn't. We went 3 times and finally the third time I said we are not leaving the bathroom until you pee. And let me tell you, I promised her the moon. A toy, cookies for dinner, anything.

Finally we got a sample and I was so happy but not like Maggie was happy. She ran down the hallway yelling, I did it, I did it.

I took the sample to the nurses' station and asked if I give it to them and the lady was like no you just keep it in your room and we'll come get it. Then she asked me what room I was in. So I go back to the room and just put it on the floor. Then like over an hour later, the doctor pops her head in and says, No luck on the urine sample? And I said no we got it. She looked at me like I was crazy so I felt the need to explain. So annoying.

Then forever later, they came back and said urine is fine. So no yeast or UTI but maybe pinworms. Guess how you check for that? You wake up 3 consecutive nights at 3 or 4 am to look in her anus for the worms (they come out at night) and inspect her poop. Yea!!!