Monday, October 4, 2010

Field Trips Galore

It has been a whirlwind week, and I don't see it slowing down.
We began last week with a visit to the creepy crawly man. One of the mothers in our co-op was able to book a traveling insect exhibit from the Field Museum and we were treated to all kinds of creatures, dead and alive. The beautiful display cases he brought with him held insects I had never seen before, his talk was very informative (did you know daddy long-legs are not spiders? Did you know male tarantulas live only 8-10 years and females live on average of 30? Something to do with genitals and their placement, but this is family friendly so we won't go into that right now.), but the most exciting part of our day was holding the actual creepy crawlies.

Mikey and Josie volunteered immediately, no fear in those two. Josie was able to hold two different tarantulas, Gracie and Audrey, which she later informed were the names of her two best friends, so fate must have brought them together. Del declared he would NOT be holding tarantulas. Only butterflies.




Elia, after much cajoling on my part held one, as long as it was half on my hand and half on hers. It was cool. The spider weighed nothing at all, it felt as if you had pipe cleaners walking on your palm. Elia conceded it was neat, but said holding it once was enough.



We also held Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, and Deli was way more interested in those, but I was not. When I took the cockroach and tried to scoop it into Del's hand, the thing started crawling up my fingers towards my wrist and my long sleeves. I tell you, it took all the will power I had to keep smiling, pretend nothing is wrong, and not drop the thing to the floor and stomp on it as hard as humanly possible. Ick.


On Wednesday I realized that I had tickets to the Chicago Children's Museum that expired THAT DAY, so there goes the sleepy day at home. In the car kids! Let's go!

Right now they have a display of Mexican toys through the years and it was so much fun to see. I kept pointing out toys I played with as a child, and they even had a few for the kids to touch. No Chavo Del Ocho, though, how he could be left out, I don't know.


1 comment:

clairesd said...

Wait. You actually held one of those cockroaches??? I don't think anyone could EVER convince me with ANYTHING to do that. Ok, maybe if one of my kids was on the verge of death or something. That's about it.