ROAR!!!

What a cold day! We looked for something fun to do inside and decided to visit the Dallas Nature and Science Museum. We tried to see a show at the planetarium but they didn't have any shows playing today. Bummer! But we found a great IMAX movie to watch - Dinosaurs Alive!

While we sat in our seats waiting for the show to start, Nicholas started pretending to be a meerkat. We were talking about meerkats earlier in the week - how one stands guard as sentinel while the others dig a burrow, sleep, or look for food. We talked about how they travel in packs and communicate with squeaks and barking sounds. It was pretty cute how he stooped down on the floor and then stood up looking around like the sentinel meerkat. I absolutely love to watch Nicholas pull together information that he has learned and then process and demonstrate it in his own way!

Nicholas hasn't been to many movie theaters and there wasn't any popcorn or candy to distract him so I wasn't sure how he would do once the movie started. Would he run up and down the aisles trying to chat with everyone around him? Or would he just get bored and fall asleep since we were now crossing over into his usual nap time? Neither - he did great! His eyes were glued to the screen and he was asking questions and commenting to me throughout. We whispered to each other and talked about what the dinosaurs were eating, why they fought with each other, and what a paleontologist does. Nicholas was really interested and we both enjoyed the show. With dinosaurs on his mind, he spent much of the day saying "ROAR!" to those we passed in the museum. Fortunately most of them were other kids who often roared right back at us :)



Nicholas was very excited about this money-making contraption pictured above. You give the machine 2 quarters and 1 penny. It keeps your 2 quarters and gives you back your penny that is now smooshed and stretched and stamped with a design not conceived of by the United States Mint. However, it does have a cool picture of a skull on it and the name "Nature and Science Museum" neatly stamped across it. I could be wrong but I believe my penny is now useless. It probably doesn't matter much now anyway since I think it has already gotten lost along the way.

We enjoyed many of the other exhibits. Of course, we spent a lot of time in the children's museum. We love the farm section. There is a platform area designed to let children "plant" seeds in holes of the garden. Then the child or a parent can go through and place the vegetables in the garden as if they had miraculously sprouted up then the child can go back through and harvest their garden. Nicholas was fascinated with the garden. However, not in the way that it was intended to fascinate him. He soon discovered that when he dropped his "seeds" into the garden holes that they rolled to a collection area underneath the platform at the edge of the garden. This is really only intended for the museum attendant to know about since she regularly has to collect the seeds and return them to the seed bags at the entrance to the garden for the next child to plant. But once Nicholas discovered it there was no stopping him. He would plant his seeds then run over to collect them himself. Then repeat 50 times. When the attendant came by, he joyously helped by picking up all the seeds and putting them in her collection bag for her.

Of course, on the farm you also have lots of animals. There is a little hen house complete with a series of nesting hens. You can go through the hen house and collect eggs that the hens have laid. The attendants place the eggs just inside the bottom of the chickens so that it gently rolls out if the child lifts the chicken to check the nest. However, if the egg didn't roll out on its own, Nicholas would not just move on to the next nest. He knew there must be an egg in there somewhere so he would just dig his hand around inside the chicken until he pulled it out. It seemed like a terribly aggressive way to collect an egg. Fortunately he isn't really a farmer or the chickens would be the ones painting billboards that read, "Eat more beef!"

In the farm there is also an incredible cow that children can "milk". Although we've been to the museum several times before I don't think Nicholas has ever milked the cow. So here he is in his first milking attempt. I think he did better at milking than he did as an egg collector.



As we were leaving, we found a giant statue of a Woolly Mammoth. Nicholas said, "Wow!" and walked around the giant statue in amazement. Suddenly, he shouted out, "Oh, there's his bottom! Look Mommy! It's his bottom!" Ok, dear! Thanks for pointing that one out to me.

We stopped at the gift shop on the way out. Of course, the ever-present scientist in me wanted to buy one of each of their books on all these great subjects like dinosaurs, butterflies, bugs, experiments with magnets, weather, etc. but I resisted. Instead Nicholas left with some freeze-dried "Astronaut Ice Cream". Sounds yummy but we both thought it was really just yucky.

Nicholas has some new fireman pajamas. As he was putting them on he pointed out the neat pictures all over his PJs. One time he pointed and said, "..and here's the fire dog." I asked, "What is the real name for the fire dog?" He said, "101 Dalmations!" So Nicholas learns a lot by reading books, as you can see :)

As we were reading our bedtime stories, we ran across a picture of a salamander in our book. Nicholas asked, "How does he defend himself?" I thought it was a bit of an odd question. Then I realized that the salamander looked very similar to one of the dinosaurs in the movie we saw today. Nicholas was recalling how each dinosaur had different strengths and weaknesses in terms of offense or defense during a fight. So we talked about it some more and tried to come up with ideas of how a salamander might defend himself. He may be camoflauged by his surroundings making it harder for a predator to find him. He can run quickly or climb to get away from predators. And finally, he can hide in small places so the predator can't find him. Apparently Nicholas thought I was playing multiple choice with him because he said, "I think I'll go with the camo answer".