Head bonk!

So, last Saturday, Ella and Maisie took another class at the Minnesota Zoo. ("SHARKS!") They were running to the entrance, Ella in front with her hands in her pockets and Maisie bringing up the rear. When Maisie caught up to Ella, she accidentally stepped on Ella's heel... which tripped Ella, sending her face-down onto the curb.

BONK!

Fortunately the Zoo has a nurse on hand. They got Ellie cleaned up, and gave her an ice pack for the rapidly swelling goose egg on her poor little head. Maisie stayed with Ella until Ella calmed down enough to go to the class.

On Sunday we went to the Science Museum, where Ellie actually spent time trying to get another bump on her head, "so they'd match." Clearly no long-term trauma has been suffered.

Now, almost a week later, it's still a little swollen but has faded to a lovely yellow-green color.

It's still not pretty to look at, but it's definitely on the mend. And honestly, the injury is much less severe than it could've been, all things considered. No broken noses or chipped or broken teeth - just a goose egg on her forehead. Still probably took a few years off of Aaron's life though.

Weekend photo roundup

I hope everyone had a great weekend and aren't too sleepy on this post-DST "spring ahead" Monday.

Our weekend started off in less-than-stellar fashion, with Maisie getting some sort of tummy bug and throwing up in her bed Friday night. Not to worry - she's totally fine now, and I'm not sharing any pictures of it! So our Saturday was pretty low key...we just hung around the house, just in case there was going to be a repeat. But fortunately it was a one-time event. So Sunday, we got out and about!

We started the morning playing outside. Aaron and the girls have built an AMAZING snow fort in the back yard out of giant snowballs. Maisie wants to turn it into an igloo, but I don't know if the snow will last long enough for them to do that.

Even if it doesn't fully become an igloo, it's still pretty fun for them to play in and on!

Then, Sunday afternoon, a parenting group I belong to had a meetup at Edinborough Park!

You might remember Edinborough as the place where we had Ella's 3rd birthday party. It's not one of our regular play spaces (mainly because we're members elsewhere, so we tend to go places where we don't have to pay admission, like the zoo or the children's museum), so it's always kind of a treat to go there.

The girls ran and jumped and slid and climbed and then did it all again! It was a lot of fun for all of us... they enjoyed playing, and I enjoyed talking to the other moms and dads.

After two and a half hours of that, we were tired out and ready to eat, so we went to Pizza Luce.

A highlight of this trip was Ella's discussion of tattoos with our server, after asking to see his heavily tattooed arms:

"I know how to do children's tattoos. You put it on your arm, and then someone gets a washcloth and they push it on, and then you peel off the paper! My mommy has grownup tattoos. They push them in your skin with needles! When I'm a grownup I'm going to get grownup tattoos, but not yet. Right now I just get children's tattoos."


Ella, future tattooed lady (Maisie took this picture)



Maisie's pine cones

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned here that we're members of the Science Museum of Minnesota. One of Maisie's favorite things to do at the museum is to visit Collectors' Corner and the Trading Post.

This is a neat area that's tucked away in the back corner of their collections gallery. To be honest, it took me a while to even notice it... I don't know how many times we visited and just walked right by it. But it's really cool! Kids can bring in things they've found in nature to trade. They get points based not just on what they found, but also how much they know about it - the people working there ask the children a bunch of questions about where they found it, how they found it, and what they know about it. The kids can then trade in their points to "buy" things from their display case that has polished rocks, little fossils, and things like that.

The first time we went, Maisie brought some finds from our fossil-hunting expedition. Well! She not only found FOSSILS but she also knew a bunch about the giant inland sea (thank you, Dinosaur Train), so she got a bunch of points. Since then, she's been trying unsuccessfully to have another huge hit like that, and get thousands of points at the Trading Post. This weekend, she finally did it again!

This fall, we collected a bunch of different pine cones around our neighborhood. They were intended for a project that never really took off, so they've been sitting on a shelf ever since. With some encouragement and assistance from me and Aaron, Maisie turned them into a poster!

As you can see, she identified each of them, taped them to the poster, and wrote down the name. She also drew a diagram of the parts of a pine cone, along with a drawing of a pine cone on the end of a branch.

Well, the person working at the trading post was REALLY impressed. It's pretty clear that Maisie did this herself, and I think he appreciated that. He asked her some questions about pine cones generally that she was able to answer, too.

He awarded Maisie 7,000 points, which made her really happy. AND he told her that he'd see if they could display her poster as an example of work that children could do to show their knowledge and earn extra points. It was so cool! She used some of her points to get a conch shell with a lovely pink interior, and saved the rest for next time.

I was (and am!) so proud of her, and even better, I think she was really proud of her poster, too. I offered to carry it in and down the stairs, but she insisted on doing it all herself.

It was a great experience and really rewarding for her. She's already planning her next report - on leaves of trees in our neighborhood, once spring is here and there are any leaves to be found!