Staycation Day 1

Since Joshua is not a great traveler and sleeper other than in the car or in his own crib we decided to stay home for vacation. We are hitting some family fun places in our hometown over a few days here and there. Darrin is taking off work on Thursdays and Fridays over the next few weeks until Rebekah starts back to preschool.

Friday we went to the Creative Discovery Museum for our first staycation day. I chased Rebekah around the upper part of the start of the museum while she played, climbed, and went sliding. Darrin was with Joshua playing in the water feature, and I wish I could have gotten a picture of that. By the time Rebekah was finished playing upstairs Joshua was finished playing in the water.



The second level of the museum always has a special exhibit displayed for several months at a time, and presently they have Clifford the Big Red Dog on display, complete with a ferry, a doghouse, lots of mailboxes to send mail to Clifford and his friends on Birdwell Island, and more. This exhibit was Rebekah's favorite of the entire museum.

Rebekah wanted to climb up Clifford


Joshua enjoyed sliding down Clifford's tail


Making sandcastles


Making a picture to send to Clifford


Here is a funny little story. Rebekah went over to the ferry and began to play like she was driving it. Just as I was snapping a picture this girl ran up to the wheel as if she had been wanting to play and just took over playing.


Of course, she was bigger than Rebekah, who wouldn't fight back, and Rebekah went over to play elsewhere. In my heart I knew I should have said something to the girl because no other adult was around. Rebekah didn't get upset, though, but I had a check in my spirit that I needed to defend Rebekah and be on her side.

A little while later Rebekah went back over to the ferry to play with the wheel again. Guess what happened? The same thing! This time I did say something to the girl. I told her that Rebekah was playing there first and she needed to wait her turn. I mentioned that this was the second time she had done this. The girl just looked at me with her eyes as big as bowling balls and waited. Rebekah only played for a few seconds before running off to something else. I told the girl she could play now and thanked her for waiting.

The next activity Rebekah visited was Clifford's bowl of dog bones. It is a huge bowl with a conveyor belt leaning against the bowl with one end of the conveyor belt on the floor and the other end over the bowl. It looks much like a slide, but it is intended for putting large bones on while you turn the wheel on the side to send the bones up the conveyor belt and into the bowl.

I showed Rebekah how to turn the wheel to send the bones up the conveyor belt while an older boy of about 9-10 years placed the bones on the conveyor belt. Rebekah turned and turned the wheel. Can you guess what happened? The boy decided Rebekah wasn't doing a good enough job, so he started to grab the wheel from Rebekah. Evidently, she had the courage to stand up to the boy this time, and she told him, "No! It's my turn!" The boy wouldn't give in until I said something to him, but then he climbed up on the conveyor belt and started running, forcing the wheel to spin extremely fast so that Rebekah couldn't play. At that point it wasn't worth dealing with the boy so we just moved on to another activity.

I thought it was so funny that Rebekah stood up to that boy, though, after I defended her from the girl earlier. The older kids may not listen to her, but I'm glad to see that she is standing up to the kids who try to bully her just because she is little. Now we just need to work on how to be polite about it. ;-)

After visiting the Clifford exhibit we went downstairs to the toddler area to meet up with Darrin and Joshua. Joshua enjoyed the train table.


The kids "working on" the car. Do you see the little girl climbing in the car? While she was driving Joshua wanted in also. The girl told her no, that it was her turn, and Joshua got so upset. It took him a while to recover. He just didn't understand, and poor thing, he's such a sensitive little guy!


It's finally his turn!


The kids look so happy to be there, don't they?


Playing tools with Daddy.


I stayed back with Joshua while Darrin took Rebekah to visit the rest of the museum as well as to visit the Clifford exhibit, so I don't have any more pics of Rebekah visiting the other museum exhibits, but here are some of Joshua playing in the toddler area.

He never wanted back in the car, but he enjoyed playing with the buttons and such.


In the toddler play area they have 4 steps leading up to what resembles a treetop with a large opening where kids can hide "inside" the tree. Joshua practiced climbing the steps. He went up 3 then came back down, then up 3 then back down, over and over until he went up all 4 steps then back down. He never crawled around once he got to the top, but he was ready to move on to something else.

Over in the kitchen section he discovered a plastic banana. He did not want to let this thing go for the longest time! I asked him if he wanted to go find Daddy and Rebekah, and he did, but not enough to let go of the banana!