Performance Art

We are trying to get out and do things on the weekends while we are here, but sometimes we have no idea what. While Chris was looking for something to do indoors last Sunday, he found that there is a Pixar exhibit at a museum. Not the best choice to bring a three year old to, but we decided to go for it.

We arrived and Chris stood in line with Josie while I wandered with Xander in the outdoor part. Our tickets were for 2:45 and it was just after 1, so we went in to look at the regular art museum. Xander kept asking "What's that?" and tried to touch everything. Then we found a special room for 'Art of the Immaterial' and Xander felt the need to express himself.


(I'm not sure how this will work, I recorded it on my iPhone but it doesn't seem to load correctly. It's basically Xander stomping to a techno beat as a voice names the colors on the screen.)

After this, we decided to take a rest room break and headed for an exit when the lights went out. I was immediately grabbing for my phone for light and calling for Xander, but emergency lights went on in less than 30 seconds. We headed to the rest room and when we reconvened we found out that the doors were locked and everyone was hanging around outside in the rain.

After about ten more minutes it was announced that this was a city-wide power failure and the museum was closing, but our tickets would be good for another time that we would like to visit.

So I will let you know how the Pixar exhibit is within the next two months.

Pumpkin Patch Kids

There are all sorts of parking-lot-pumpkin-patches that have sprouted up around here. There's a fenced in area that contains pumpkins (obviously), corn, hay and a bounce house. Xander sees them as we drive by and gets all upset because he wants to jump.

After some debate, we decided to go to a pumpkin patch on a local farm. It had the bounce house, pumpkins, corn, etc. It also had a petting zoo and face painting! So after nap time, we headed off. And it started raining.

So there was no zoo, no face painting and we had to nearly drag Xander past the bounce house. We were even too late for the hay ride, though the kids were able to play on the tractor and trailer. But, by golly, we bought some pumpkins.

This one is titled "Turn around so your mother can take your picture."

"Yee-haw, Cowboy"

Junior Zoo

The kids are hanging onto their colds but we needed out so we stopped by the 'junior zoo' here. It's actually a 'junior museum and zoo' but we skipped the museum part because it is entirely interactive and germs would be spread.

The 'zoo' (do you like you I keep using the quotation marks?) was very small and only contained small animals, most which you could find in your neighborhood. I'm talking turtles, rats, snakes, rabbits, raccoons, etc. Since we don't usually see them in the neighborhood, it was still fun.

Snotty Little Things

Last week, on Thursday to be exact, Josie woke up with a runny nose. So like clockwork, Xander woke up with a runny nose on Saturday. There has been an abundance of tissues used, some coughing but, fortunately, no fevers.

Unfortunately, them having colds does severely limit our activities. No gym because they aren't allowed in the kids area, no play grounds or story time. I'm pretty sure that is where Josie picked up this little bug, an oh-so-thoughtful caretaker left a kid's bottle sitting on a bench and Josie repeatedly made a bee line for it while I was reminding Xander not to tackle kids. So I'm trying to be considerate and not expose others.

So that means being stuck at home in this small house with tempers already shortened by not feeling well.

I just hope that they are better by next Monday because there is a scheduled power outage and I might actually have to interact with Xander and Josie.

Sweet Dreams

Somewhere around the beginning of summer, Xander woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night crying and very upset about something. He couldn't quite articulate it but I had the impression that he'd had some nightmares.

In order to prevent this, I would talk to him for a minute before bed about what dreams he might have. I did not go into long explanations about the definition of a dream or explain that bad things weren't real. I just told him to close his eyes and think about one thing or another. Like the sun and clouds. I'm still not sure if he understands, but every morning I ask him what he dreamed about.

Most of the summer his answer was snow.

All of August his answer was California.

Since his birthday, his answer is Chuck E. Cheese's.

He must get replaced during the night

We have started looking into some sort of class for Xander. He has way too much energy and desperately wants friends. He mentions friends he hasn't seen since Ohio (CaiyaConnorDeacon, Tyler, Caroline, Alex, etc) and has become a little....needy...on the playground. Alright, he follows the other kids around trying to play with them.

The local Y has one class one afternoon a week, but that won't work. We don't feel ready to put him into an organized sport. I tried looking for classes at a community center with no luck. So this week I looked in at two kiddie gyms. The first was nice enough but we arrived during a faculty meeting so didn't get to see how things worked. And boy was Xander mad when we left and he couldn't play.

The second gym I like because it had a separate area for parents that included toys to occupy Josie. We arrived 15 minutes before a class that Xander would fit into and he was invited to try it out. We grabbed a quick snack and I let him loose wondering what would come. Crying and clinging?

Xander ran right in, past the instructors, to play. The instructors called him back and he went and sat in the circle of kids. He followed directions, he jumped and slid and ran and tried everything new with eagerness. At the end, most of the kids slowly walked over to sit down and he started running in circles. By golly, he liked it!

Of course, it's pricey. We'll try to look around for more options (any ideas??) before we commit.

So today I take the kids to a different story time, for ages 18 months to 3 years. I knew Xander would be one of the older kids, but that's ok. And maybe Josie wouldn't spend the entire time getting into things (haha).

No dice, once again Xander sat with me saying he wanted to go home. He started to have more fun towards the end when there were songs he knew but he still wouldn't leave my side. Someone mentioned story time in another area library, maybe we'll see if that clicks.

Train ride

We went a couple of towns over and went on a carousel and a mini train ride. It located at a city park with the normal picnic tables, swings and slides as well as the carousel and train.

We all had fun.




There was a turntable for the train. I thought that was cool. The train is built to be 1/3 scale.