BodyWorlds, Birthday, and Peter Bunny

Ahhh, so much has been going on the last few days. Where to start? First, I’m feeling better. HURRAY!!!! I can tell because 1) I don’t feel like a reject from a zombie movie quite so much anymore, 2) I can walk up my stairs again without huffing like someone who’s just run the Boston Marathon, 3) my house is starting to look less like a blast detonation site, which is because I’ve tidied it up a little bit instead of super helpful friends and family coming to de-sticky it, and 4) I made a decent dinner tonight for the first time in ummmm, never mind. Mostly, even though I’m still returning food at about the same rate, my energy level has improved so much that it’s nowhere near as debilitating.  Yay!

So, busy weekend over here. Friday night my Dad called and invited George and I to go with him to OMSI (our local science & industry museum) to see the BodyWorks 3 show since this was the final weekend. It was fascinating! If you aren’t familiar with it, BodyWorld is a display of bodies that have been donated to science and then “plastinated,” which is more or less what it sounds like.

This technique allows for preservation of not only form, but color as well and allows the bodies to be molded into specific poses so that the viewer can see how the musculature extends or contracts, where the tendons attach, and a whole host of other possibilities. You can read more about it at www.bodyworlds.com. If you saw the newest James Bond movie, BodyWorlds was featured in one of the early scenes.

We told the kids where we were going and received typical responses:

Georgie: I want to go!
Trinity: I want to go!
Georgie: Wait, I don’t know if I want to go. It might be too scary.
Me: Neither of you guys are going. I think you’re still a bit young.
Georgie: Oh good. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see dead bodies.
Trinity: I want to go!

Also this weekend was Georgie’s 9th birthday, so we had a Transformer birthday party for him on Monday. A bunch of his buddies came and we invaded George’s parents’ house for cake & ice cream and presents and then packed everyone all off to Bauman Farms to run around for three hours. Here’s a couple of party pictures:

Trinity modeling what Uncle Steve and Auntie Angie gave Georgie (so lovely!):

Every October, Bauman Farms turns their normally lovely little farm into fall heaven with corn and hay mazes, a zip line, teepee, fort, huge slides and swings, and all kinds of great stuff. We usually go there for Georgie’s birthday. Like a big dummy I let Anika talk me into crawling through one of the hay mazes, which I realized was an error before I even discovered that I then had hay in my skivvies. Duh!

Trinity figured out how to make duck calls all by herself, and then spent the next twenty minutes trying to call the ducks over. Of course when a humongous goose arrived instead and startled her, she jumped back about five feet and promptly switched to “baaaa”ing at the sheep. 

When we finally made it home around 6:30, Kyra was pretty pooped. I put Faith to nap at Mom & Pop’s house instead of taking her to the farm with us, but I let Kyra skip nap. When we arrived home, I pulled her out of the car and put her on the driveway to go in the house and she sort of crumpled in tears. By 7:30 she had disintegrated to wandering around the house crying. Bed time!

Naturally, she didn’t actually want to go to bed and continued crying away in her bunk. The bed is scary. The wall is scary. I’m not sleepy. The ceiling is scary. Clearly logic is going to be no help here!

I picked up her stuffed bunny and took another tack:

Me: Let me introduce you to Peter Rabbit. Say “Hi Peter.”

Kyra stops crying and says hi to Peter.

Me: Peter is reeeeally sleepy and knows he’ll feel much better after he gets a good night sleep, but Peter is scared. He thinks the ceiling is scary and doesn’t like it all dark.

Kyra seems to have forgotten that she herself was protesting twenty seconds ago.

Me: Do you think you can take care of Peter for me? Can he curl up and sleep with you so that he won’t be scared? You’re such a big girl; I know he’ll feel much better with you.

Kyra grins, curls up with Peter, and I hear not a peep as I close the door. Hehe. Success! I head downstairs to go help the big kids finish up their homework. A few minutes later we hear Kyra crying again from her bedroom. What? I could have sworn that worked.

George is upstairs already, so he goes in to see what’s up. The kids and I listen from downstairs.

Kyra in tears: Peter Bunny won’t go to sleep with me!

George scolds: Now Peter Bunny, it’s time for you to go to sleep now. No more fooling around; it’s bedtime. You curl up here with Kyra. It’s not scary. It’s time for bed. Night night.

When he closes the door, the older kids and I laugh and give Daddy the thumbs up. Nice work! Kyra is quiet the whole rest of the night. Some days you just feel like a genius.

Rachel