September 17th

Once nice and clean, we went to the Academy of Natural Sciences with Steph today!  We were unsure about how much you'd enjoy it...thinking things might be a bit over your head, but we were very wrong.  You went it and were immediately drawn in to the dinosaur (a word you apparently know, by the way) room and were then terrified right back out of it.  There was a lizard of some sort (it started with an 'A,' that's all I remember, that moved and "Rawr"ed... We went into the room on the other side and looked at it together...slowly got closer...and then you were obsessed with it.  You wanted to touch it, but right...it's a museum.

We saw butterflies being born and sang them happy birthday as they took their first flight..."swam" "under water" with the glow-in-the-dark fish, became lightning bugs in a jar (which, I will admit, I had no understand of until I saw the picture while uploading it... "how was that anything like being a lightning bug?!" I said as we left... Right.  I get it now.), walked through all sorts of (not gonna lie - kinda creepy) taxidermied animals, and then went up to "outside, inside" which is the area where you can touch things.  We met a rabbit, and a millipede (who pooped in the hand of the person holding it), and two turtles...did rubbings of fossils...puzzles...and Steph helped you take that lovely picture of me taking a picture of you taking my picture down there... Actually, Mr, not a bad shot.

You did not nap on the way home as anticipated.  Instead, wired, you played with Tara who was in from Boston for the week, and painted Steph a picture.  I think Tara should help you paint more often.  She didn't let it become finger painting.  The composition of the painting is quite lovely.  I forgot to take a picture of it.

You fell asleep on the way to dinner, but woke up in time to say goodbye to Steph (which you didn't do) and stayed awake to say hello to Grandmom and Grandmapa when we picked up Aiden. You then stayed awake and stubbornly so, until about 11.  Tomorrow morning is gonna be a rough one for us I think, Sir.  God, do I abhor school drop off.   It's hard enough for me to leave you, I wish you just absolutely adored getting dropped off so my missing you was all I had to deal with!  Here's hoping for a no tears day tomorrow...