For no readily apparent reason, I woke up this morning at 6.18 am. For the first time in about 5 nights Thumper hadn't woken up crying at 3.30 am. (Might be something to do with her being warmer than previous nights after I boosted the layers of her night attire and bedclothes by swapping the singlet for a spencer and adding an extra blanket on her cot; this is in addition to the usual all-in-one suit, bed-socks, extra-warm all-in-one suit and a 'gro-bag' sleeping bag on top.) So despite an accumulated sleep debt, for some reason, my body seemed to think 6.18 am was enough sleep thank you very much. Bah!
I was up by 7.00 am after my cup of tea in bed (thank you DeepSpice!) and decided that I had enough energy and motivation to go out and do something. So made a snap decision to go to the Melbourne Museum and see the Titanic exhibition before it finishes in October. I knew BallFiend would enjoy the Museum and although Thumper's a bit young, I figured she will get more out of this visit compared to the last time we went to the museum back in June 2009, when she was a 6 month old foetus.
I sold the idea to BallFiend by showing him some photos of the Titanic, which then naturally led to discussions of icebergs, submarines and DEATH! (A current favourite topic, but not in a morbid way, just in a curious-about-life-because-I-am-four-years-old kind of way.)
Once he was fully briefed (what did parents do before there was Google Images?), I raced about the house like a mad-woman, packing sandwiches and snacks, refilling nappy bags and loading up the car. I also decided that the dishes needed to be washed before we left. As I was filling the sink, BallFiend impressed me when he came over and asked to help. He wanted to wash (because he wanted to play with the bubbles!) but I knew that would be asking for disaster so I convinced him to start his apprenticeship with drying and told him to pick a tea towel (he chose the green one of course). He had a good go at drying the dishes and I was reminded again that I really need to make more opportunities for him to be helping around the house, before he gets to that age where he won't!
We left at 9.50 am, in the car today as the weather forecast for hail storms didn't really make the train an appealing option. Once at the Museum, we made a bee-line for the Titanic exhibition and I gave the kids morning tea while we stood in the queue. After about 10 minutes we were admitted via a cut-out in the side of a (small!) replica Titantic hull where a photographer took our photo in front of a green screen... ready for the merchandising assault that would come at the end.
The queue continued to snake it's way all through the exhibition, but BallFiend wasn't having any of that, darting about from one display to the next, with me desperately trying to keep up whilst manoeuvring the pram between elderly women in twin-sets and pearls, ruddy-faced elderly gents who could have passed for officers on the Titantic crew and parents with older school aged kids who gave me disdainful looks that screamed 'we have well-behaved children, why can't you control your child?'.
I kept my cool and continued to very politely say 'excuse me please, I need to bring the pram through." and in response the next grumpy old sod would begrudgingly shift half a centimetre across, as if they thought I could magically shrink the pram to fit through whatever gap they would deign to grant me!
Still BallFiend and I managed to enjoy ourselves and BallFiend was fascinated with seeing all the relics which had "sunk to the bottom of the sea!" His highlights were touching the iceberg (a actual wall of ice about 2 metres high and 4 metres long) and seeing one full marble and the hemi-spherical remains of a second marble that had belonged to a child on the ship.
We made our escape past the merchandise and stopped for toilets and to change Thumper's nappy before wandering over to the [insert name of inappropriate sponsor for a kids' venue here] Children's Garden to eat our lunch. Once there, I spied some familiar faces who we hadn't seen in months: The Adel-lady and PainterSam with LittleMissP and LittleMissA (who is 2.5 years old already, and toilet trained!). We had a bit of a catch up whilst BallFiend and LittleMissP ran amok, and Thumper dragged herself around on the concrete and chewed on quoits and hula hoops. Then BallFiend threw one of the hoops over the fence and out of the Museum grounds, so I decided it was time to go.
The rest of the day consisted of:
- a play in the "1, 2, 3 Grow" display in the Children's Gallery;
- another Thumper nappy change;
- a whale 'touch trolley' (pieces of dead whale to hold including: teeth, baleen plate, rib bones, and some shrimps encased in a perspex block);
- dinosaur bones;
- explaining the concept of evolution to BallFiend when we went through the "Life" exhibition;
- looking at blood, bones, spew and poo in the "Human body" section;
- a walk through the rainforest or rather a run, as I chased BallFiend whilst he tried to see "where the stream goes next". BallFiend was fascinated with the waterfall which was generating enormous amounts of misty water vapour.
- a pit stop at the cafe where BallFiend had an enormous chocolate biscuit with chocolate chips and smarties on top, which he ate by picking the smarties off, then crumbling the biscuit apart to get to the chocolate chips.
- a short wander through the Aboriginal exhibition - BallFiend was interested in the eel trap, possum fur cloak and the digeridoos, but best of all he liked the squiggly-line pattern made on the carpet by a special lighting effect.
My inclination to take the train next time, regardless of the weather forecast was reinforced by the drive home: a hair-raising journey due to the road-raging maniacs everywhere.
On arriving home, I had a quick (and hard-earned!) cup of tea then made dinner and got the kids into the bath at 6.10 pm, just as DeepSpice arrived home. Apparently the day's outing was a hit with BallFiend who spent most of the time while he was in the bath and getting ready for bed telling DeepSpice all about the marble and the broken half-a-marble, and the toothbrush with no bristles, and great big rusted metal tool (an 1 metre long wrench) and the iceberg and the poo and the bones and the many other things we saw at the Museum.
Once ready for bed -- after DeepSpice had got him into PJs and read some stories -- BallFiend decided that I should be the one to tell him his 'talking story in bed' tonight (this is usually DeepSpice's domain). The requested theme for tonight's talking story was about a boy who goes to a museum and sees a big ship that sank to the bottom of the sea, guest starring... a marble and a broken half-a-marble. Ah, BallFiend, ever-fixated on your one true passion!
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