The Science Center

Jen & I took the kids to the Science Center yesterday. Great fun was had.

I love this place because they have everything set up for children to play and learn. They also have an area called "Little Discoveries" for toddlers and infants.

Here are Carter & Ethan placing golf balls on a ramp. What fun!



And here is Brenna taking a break from sticking her fingers in the ramp and stopping the balls.



And what fun would there be if you couldn't make a mess? There were 3 big vats of bubbles!



This area was great fun. And would have been more fun if it wasn't being run through by 3rd graders. Yep, a whole freaking swarm of them, running like fools, through the toddler area. I actually heard a teacher say "I like to bring them in here because I don't have to watch them". Nice. Jen had words with a couple of them after they ran over her boys and she & I both had to tell children who to be polite and share. And we said this to them in front of the people who were supposed to be watching them.

More on this in a bit.

So we left the toddler exhibit and went upstairs. There are legos to make cars to race and a water way to build dams and play with boats. There is an egg drop (you wrap the egg in foam and drop it from a crane) and a train set. Removing Carter & Ethan from this area for lunch was a bit trying. Promises to return fell on deaf ears. Well, Jen's ear were deaf; there was quite a bit of screaming.

As we were leaving the lunch area I saw a guy dressed in khakis and a button down shirt; not the polo that most employees were wearing. So I walked up to him and said "So, what are you in charge of?"

"Pretty much everything," he replied.

I ended up having about a 20 minute conversation with him about the group we encountered, how the teachers didn't watch them and how the children were run down repeatedly. He was very understanding of our position and gave us passes to come another day. He told me about the delimma of groups and what the Science Center is going to do with problem groups that return. Let's just say it has to do with extra staff.

So, armed with passes to be used after school begins we continued our exploring.

No science center is complete without the ball of electricity.



Brenna was shocking me while I held her.

Soon she had had enough:



And the boys had meltdowns soon after. We had a good time, though. I can't wait to go back.