Fall Weekend: Ecotarium

It was a beautiful late-fall weekend this last weekend. (I rewrote that sentence a few times trying not to use weekend twice - no luck). It’s weekends like these that make you appreciate living in an area with seasons. And I got to spend a bunch of the time outside. I had a play date/slumber party with Cameron and Maggie (and their mom - Cece). We made our way up to the Ecotarium in Worchester. It was a fun museum and I have to say it again, seeing a museum through the eyes of youngsters is fun all over again. I wasn’t wild about the live animals they had (not a big fan of zoos*) but they had a lot of cool stuffed animals - which I like and other amazing exhibits. Funny enough, one of the highlights of the museum was at the very beginning - where the kids were able to walk on air. Well, sort of.

Right next to the first batch of exhibits was a glass railing that looked down at the two floors below. The designers had taken a portion of the floor and made it glass. It provided a strange optic illusion. You weren’t quite sure where the hard surfaces were. I was helping Maggie take off her winter jacket and I notice Cameron at the edge of the regular floor, reaching his arm out trying to find the glass wall that is usually there. And it wasn’t there! We go over and show how you can go onto the glass floor. It was a strange thing that the little minds took a while to process. Their bodies were so funny - they wanted to check it out and walk out on the glass floor but their legs wouldn’t really let them move at first. And then the strange tentative little steps. And then a moment later they’re rolling around and enjoying this new phenomena, the fear completely gone. There were several other kids, one young girl was a little too young and just freaked out that the normal physics of her life was turned upside down!

We jumped from exhibit to exhibit - even checked out some ferrets (you can see a tail) and at one point was able to jam all three of us into this one play structure. Of course Cam crawled out before the camera could come out. The other highlight was at the end of the museum - we took a train ride around the grounds and even went through a tunnel - excitement. I wonder what it would be like having that job - riding the train over the same short route hour after hour.

In the afternoon, Maggie was down for her nap and Cam, Cece and I hung out outside. Cam was a great little helper and helped me vacuum my car - I love a cleanly vacuumed car. And they have a great set-up with a shop-vac that makes it so easy. I’m sure I’ve waxed poetic about it before. I was on a roll and even vacuumed Cece’s car too - cosmetically. Cam loved vacuuming but was more interested in vacuuming up little leaves. We would take turns. First he would go vacuuming up leaves on the garage floor. And then I would quickly try to get as much done on the cars. He would come up and interrupt me periodically with a leaf in his hand for me to vacuum - too cute. Also, I wish I had gotten a picture, but we were both wearing “ear muffs” to protect our ears from the noise. Except his were a bit big so ended up squishing his cheeks forward too.

And we came up with a fun game in the afternoon. He has a John Deer toy tractor. I’d sweep up leaves in the driveway and he would come over, I’d load him up and he would go over and dump them out, backing up just like he has seen his dad. That task kept him occupied for hours. He would get really excited and tell us about what he was doing. I couldn’t always follow all of it since he was so excited.

In the morning, I heard Cam first so came in to wake him up. He was so excited - it’s like special medicine. I climbed up into his new and amazing fire truck bed and we hung out in bed chatting for awhile until we heard Maggie. And then we went in to get her and she was so excited to see us. We hung out in her room and both kids wanted to take their PJs off and just roll around gently rough housing together. Cam picked out both of their outfits and I think it was about when they were both running around buck-naked that mom got up and came in. A morning at church playing with more new toys and then home for lunch.

Sunday afternoon, I ran errands before heading home and didn’t get in until 4 pm. I was very thankful for the extra hour as I tried to catch-up on chores before crashing for the night. All in all a fun weekend and thanks to Cece, some pictures to remember the days by!

*Funny side note, as we were driving to the museum, Cece mentioned how someone had told her that visiting zoos in developing countries wasn’t a great idea (they have trouble taking care of their own population, let alone animals). And in mid-sentence she laughs when she realizes it was my brother who told her that - not some strange “someone”. Small world and still strange to have her relaying conversations she had with Nick. We were far apart in age we didn’t overlap in friends.