10 Questions About…

Today we went to the Flint Hills International Children’s Festival. If we’re in town, we always try to go, but this is the first year that we’re seen one of the indoor shows. We started our day at 11 am at the Ordway seeing Corbian the Dinosaur. It’s part light show, part puppetry. Picture Harold and the Purple Crayon meets deep sea bioluminescent creatures. It was really cool – even the older girls had to admit it. The music was great. Aine would not let go of my arm for the first 20 minutes with the loud music and the awesome glow in the dark dragons.

The music went from classic, to Baby Elephant Walk to a little Riders on the Storm and some Ta for Tots folk music. My only wish was that they would have thrown in a little Led Zeppelin. (Not because I’m such a Zeppelin fan – but it just seemed like it would have been a perfect fit.) The theater was filled. The tickets were only $5. There were a lot of babies crying and antsy toddlers. But that didn’t bother us. A highlight – and it’s tough not to get a little crude is when the mean, orange dragon poops out neon spirals that become flowers. (I’m sure there was a weird ecology lesson there.)

After the show we went to Bruegger’s to get the makings of an easy picnic. Then we walked around. The Festival had definitely expanded since the last time we were there – but it still includes lots of craft and projects for kids (more for Aine than the pre-teen crew) but it had something for everyone. Kids Hair was there giving free spray on tattoos and dye jobs. The butterfly net is always a big hit – even if also always a little too crowded . The parade was pretty good – but the highlight was the Bandaloop.

According to their web site, Project Bandaloop performs “in natural and urban settings, the company uses theaters, buildings, towers, bridges, cliffs, and skyscrapers as its dance floor.” So for this gig they did their dance suspended from the top of the Lawson Software building. The dancers repel gracefully about halfway down the building – and then they stop. (I counted at least 6 floors up.) It had to remind the parents of watching Batman and Robin climb walls – that’s what it looked like – only real.

It was fantastic!!

Even being deathly afraid of heights, the dancers are so good that I didn’t worry about their safety the whole time. The dance, flip and fly around the building. They danced to two songs. I have the first performance, a duet below. I hope the jumps from the building look as amazing in video as they did in person. (Aine liked this one best because the couple danced together more.)

Looking for something fun and potentially education to do outside without getting sweaty? Think mini golf at the Minnesota Science Museum. It just opened last weekend; so we took a foursome out to the course to check it out. The location is beautiful – the golf course is between the Science Museum and the River. It’s a 9-hole course. I don’t think it took us an hour to play.

Our group included a first grade a couple of adults and a few in between and we all enjoyed the game. We did institute the six-stroke rule. Once you get to six strokes on any given hole, you’re out. So that keeps the game rolling along – but we didn’t use it every hole. There’s a mix of luck and skill involved in the game. (Although I can tell you that the most skilled player did win the game!) A few holes involve water traps, which I’m sure will be even more welcome in the hotter months. There are a few sandboxes too for younger players who may need to regroup between shots.

Each shot contains a key lesson. For example, in the second hole, you have to hit your ball through running water to get to the hole – but since flowing water acts in predictable ways on materials (such as golf balls) the hole isn’t as tough as it looks. If David Hume can use the pool table to tech probability, the Science Museum can use miniature golf to teach about ecology. Also there are various notes about the surrounding area. Apparently the bushes surrounding the course will bear fruit later in the season and players are welcome to eat what they can reach to pick.

One note – you have to pay to get into the Museum and then pay for the mini golf so if you’re not a member, it can get expensive. But after 5 pm, you can get in for just $5 per person and forget about the museum fee.

Taking after her mom, Lily plays right field. Not taking after her mom – Lily caught at least on fly ball…

We did PeepsDioramas this year – I was just never able to submit our finished product to the Pioneer Press web site. Sorry! Several people asked me about it. (Thanks!) I did try a couple of time to submit our entries but no luck. You can enjoy them here:

We have two Justin Bieber Dioramas

And Aine and I did a Peep version of Sunday in the Park with George.

Well I think Spring has finally spring. It was warm most of the weekend – in fact it was a total bonus since it was supposed to rain all weekend – really it only rained Sunday afternoon. We took advantage of the good weather on Saturday by checking out he St Paul Farmer’s Market. There aren’t a lot of vegetables or fruit – but there’s chocolate popcorn, flower and eggs. Actually there are sauces and things too and it’s always nice to be outside and see the fresh ingredients. And there were free hayrides. So we got a hayride around lower town.

Then we headed to the Cinco de Mayo Festival in East St Paul. By the time we got there it was genuinely hot, which was kind of fun. Our big thrill was when Aine was selected to be a contestant for the Radio Disney game.
 

Aine and her Daisy troop had a bridging ceremony – they all crossed over to become Brownies. We are going to try to not lose her Brownie vest for the next bridging ceremony, which is probably two years away. We unfortunately did lose our Daisy vest. Or maybe we never really had one and what we really lost was Lily’s Daisy vest from five years ago. Luckily Aine does not mind details like a lost vent – just so long as we get to go to the party!

It was nice to spend Easter at home – where the Easter Bunny has access to the usual candy. And we got to go to the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt! The block over has been hosting an Easter Egg hunt for 11 years. It’s a very big deal. All of the kids are invited – it involves literally hundreds of eggs filled with treat and usually involves a visit from EB himself. It was a chilly day – but a chilly day in a cold spring can feel pretty darned good.

On Monday I got a call from school. Aine had run into the corner of a wall and maybe she shouldn’t walk home from school today. Well, I hope the corner is missing a chunk – as her forehead definitely is!

We went straight to Children’s Hospital. I cannot say enough nice things about the staff there. I was a little worried when there was no one at the welcome desk – but the reason seemed to be that we could go directly to a triage nurse who was quick to wave us in. I kind of knew the drill since we’ve gone for stitches on our forehead at Children’s before. They got us all checked in – and by checked in, I don’t mean with insurance et al. I mean with description of what happened and some numbing ointment for the cut.

We sat in the waiting room for less than 10 minutes before they called us back for our own room. I knew it took 45 minutes for the numbing gel to work – so we waited. Sadly Aine got sicker. She mentioned to the doctor that her throat hurt. A few minutes later she started throwing up. I was worried about a concussion – but it turned out to be strep.

A nurse came in and described the procedure to Aine. She showed her all of the sterile equipment they would use. Then the stitcher came in to do her magic. Apparently there’s someone on staff who simply sews up kids all day long. Aine got 8 stitches; 6 external and 2 internal. Apparently they could see bone through the cut. Aine was clearly very uncomfortable through the process, but she didn’t cry.

Once the procedure was done she was back to talking a mile a minute and didn’t stop until she finally fell asleep at home around 8 pm.