JourneyLeaf: Life a Page at a Time

Contemplating the Slide...

  

  

Call of the Wild

True confessions.  We've been going to Discovery Kingdom a lot.  But our memberships and parking pass make it easy to zip in just for an hour or two.  Last night we packed a picnic and headed there after Eli's nap.  Little Guy loves the tot rides and exploring the play areas.  He adores the two miniature trains.  The animal-themed rides are spiffy too.

  

Suddenly last night he was less enthusiastic about some of the real animals, though...

We ate a quick supper so there would be time to catch the whale show.  After eating, Brian went to toss the food waste while I dug in the stroller for some wet wipes for Eli’s hands.  Suddenly Eli cried out in distress and ran into my arms, his eyes overflowing with tears.  He clung like a monkey.  Finally we got out of him that a big bird swooped close, probably to steal crumbs left on the table from Eli’s dinner.  It took a while of waving our hands and saying, “Shoo, shoo, silly bird!” in a funny voice before Eli could finally laugh about it as we strolled through the park towards the whale show. 

The whole bird incident had us behind schedule, so we slipped into the theatre just as the Shouka the Killer Whale entered the show pool.  We found a couple of seats up front and settled in.  I had my expensive digital camera poised to snap a few shots when suddenly a wave of water rolled across us, chilly froth straight from Shouka’s fluke.  Instinctively, I turned my shoulder.  Although I got drenched, my camera only had a few drops here and there.  Whew!  

I thought Eli was tucked close enough to Brian to stay dry, but no.  Little Guy was quite wet.  He looked as shocked and mad as a wet hen too!  We tried to explain that the whale was playing, that it was funny.  Nope.  Eli was not amused.  “Are you okay, Eli?” Brian asked.  “No!” 

Poor little guy!  Traumatized by two not-so-wild animals in the space of ten minutes!  This was near bedtime and after a long day of excitement too.  So we found new seats higher up.  That turned out to be smart because the place where we had been sitting got pounded with water every time Shouka jumped or swam close. 

  

It wasn’t until after the show, after one more ride on the little train, and after reaching the parking lot that Eli would laugh at us pantomiming Shouka’s silly antics.  “Shoo, shoo, silly whale!”  Thankfully, today he seems to think it was an adventure and giggles when he talks about it.

Here's a safe animal!  Snuggling with his monkey on the ride home...

Butterfly Day

We made a trip last week to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom expressly to visit the butterfly house.  

I never knew butterflies could be so beautiful...or so hard to photograph!  The indoor space is filled with trees and bushes, so it is jungle-dark and steamy inside.  Also, many of the butterflies like flying high.  As they rise against the brightness of the solarium windows, it is hard to show their size, plus their beautiful details darken into mere silhouettes.  The wingspan on the butterfly below was wider than the spread fingers of my hand and it was richly-colored.  

 

But I finally found a few butterflies willing to be still.  And thanks to my the recent photography class, I thought to try softening the flash on my camera.

 

  

  

  

  

 

Some butterflies like to hang upside down.  Eli and I learned to check the undersides of leaves and branches to see what might be hiding there.

 

The butterfly snack bar -- nectar served up on golf tees embedded in a pink baseball.  If you're feeling hungry, flutter on by!  

We came upon a staff member who had many butterflies in a big mesh box.  He explained these were newly-hatched butterflies and he was moving them one at a time to a wooden butterfly drying rack!  

 

Wet-winged butterflies fresh from the cocoon, still clinging to the screen roof of the box...

 

The butterfly drying rack...

 

After enjoying the butterflies (and a few tot rides), we had a picnic lunch before heading home.  Of course our sandwiches were cut into butterfly shapes!

 

After nap, we grabbed our book basket and headed for the library to find books about butterflies.

 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Life Cycle of a Butterfly by Angela Royston

Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert

For more butterfly books (and songs), visit the SurLaLune Storytime page.

 

Years ago when I did student teaching for my art education degree, I had so many ideas about things to do to jazz up a teaching unit.  But we had huge class sizes, limited funds, lots of kids with behavior problems, and no chance at field trips.  Sort of frustrating.  Being a mom kicks the door wide open to doing all the fun things that pop into my brain.  Satisfying!  Hmmm.  Maybe next week we'll go to the garden center to find some flowers butterflies like so we can coax them into visiting our back yard....

Bird's Eye View: Emeryville Pedestrian Bridge

In June we found yet another bird's eye view hangout.  This one is a pedestrian bridge in Emeryville that links the Amtrak station (and the end of 59th Street) to Shellmound Street on the other side of the tracks.  

 

It takes a lot of patient waiting...

 

A fruit & veggie smoothie packet as sustenance...

 

But at last...  (This was a southbound train coming from the direction of Berkeley.)

 

This is a great spot for train-watching.  The bridge even lets you peek at passengers getting on and off.  You can see a train coming and going for quite a distance.  When there is no train to be seen, there is still a lot of road and pedestrian traffic to keep a tot occupied.

 

Mesmerized... 

  

 

One Mama's Two Cents:
The bridge has an elevator, so you can easily bring a stroller and/or a picnic.  Trains come by about every thirty minutes, but you can save the wait by checking the Amtrak schedule for the Emeryville station.  There is plenty of public parking just below the bridge.  Afterwards, walk across Shellmound Street to Emeryville Public Market.  It looks like a huge international food court, but many of the stalls are much, much better than a food court.  I can never get enough of the Vietnamese rice noodles!  It is currently under construction but still open for business.  According to the website, it will have a kids' play area when it is done. 

Bird's Eye View: Cal Memorial Stadium

I'm discovering that tots love a bird's eye view.  Eli gets a big kick from walking the Golden Gate Bridge and hanging out on the pedestrian bridge above the interstate.  One of his new favorites is watching the massive renovations to the football stadium on the Cal campus.

 

The stadium is built on a hillside, so the construction team put a visitor viewing station at the top of the hill.  It is a great place for kids to watch cranes, trucks, forklifts, and construction workers.  But you can also do that sitting in your armchair.  Click here to see the 24-hour construction camera!

Bird's Eye View: Carquinez Bridge

Yup.  Tots love a bird's eye view.  

Recently we walked across the Carquinez Bridge that connects the towns of Crockett and Vallejo (and in the grander scheme makes for a direct route between San Francisco and Sacramento).  There are actually two parallel bridges.  The eastbound span is an old-fashioned cantilever bridge built in 1927, while the westbound is a suspension bridge built in 2003.  

The newer bridge includes a wide pedestrian walkway separated from car traffic by a brick wall.

 

Great views!  Eli loved that Amtrak periodically chugs past on the Crockett (west) side.

 

Looking towards Mt. Tamalpais across San Pablo Bay.

 

On the Vallejo (east) side, there is a viewing area that overlooks the water and Mare Island.

 

One Mama's Two Cents:
Although the bridge can be quite windy at times, it is a lovely walk and less than a mile each way.  I'm not sure about the Vallejo side, but in Crockett there is parking near The Dead Fish restaurant.  (Sounds awful but is is a really great place to eat with fun views.)

Goodbye, Space Shuttle

I grew up with a brother who loved all things space and NASA.  He can still rattle off the names of all the astronauts of the 1960s and give you the blow-by-blow on how the lunar missions unfolded.  We adored our space-themed Lego sets, launching our own missions under the shady bushes in the back yard.  We drank the astronaut's Tang orange breakfast drink and carried NASA-inspired "Space Food Sticks" in our school lunch boxes.  Since I was born the same year as the moon landing, it feels like my whole childhood had a starry backdrop of space stories.  

In the early 1980s, my brother was fascinated by NASA's next chapter -- the shuttle program.  Thanks to him, I understood a little bit about what I was seeing on June 18, 1983 when I had the opportunity to watch an actual launch.  A silent little flame appeared in the distance going up, up, up into the sky.  The Challenger was rising fast by the time the roar of the launch rolled in across the river.  Even from a few miles away, it was really something.  And I had the chance to cheer on Sally Ride as she became the first American woman to reach space.

I'll never forget the day in 1986 when the Challenger disaster occurred, killing all seven aboard.  Adventurous and smiling school teacher Christa McAulliff and the crew vanished forever.  This time, the silent flame on the horizon became an arching column of smoke.  I remember feeling my heart lurch when I saw it on a television screen, knowing how it should have looked going straight up into the blue.  The stuff of dreams to the stuff of nightmares.  Unfathomable, yet then it happened once more.  The Columbia broke apart in 2003 and another seven were lost.  

I think we've all heard about the concept of everyone being just six degrees of separation from each other.  Sometimes it is shorter.  Not long after the Columbia went down, I ran into a friend and discovered she was in grief.  One of her best friends died -- on the Columbia.   On that day in 2003, she was with the small group of family and friends at Kennedy Space Center waiting for the Columbia to touch down.  It was only when the countdown clock reached zero without a shuttle appearing that they began to wonder if something might be wrong.  Moments later, cell phones starting ringing with news that the officials hadn't yet had the chance to deliver.  

But then my friend started talking about Captain David Brown.  He was an excellent flight surgeon for the Navy and a crackerjack aviator.  Yet despite his huge accomplishments, he was also a warm and funny guy.  He'd once even tried his hand at being a circus acrobat.  As she talked, he seemed very real to me even though I'd never met him.  The other lost astronauts somehow seemed more real too.  You don't get to be a shuttle astronaut (even an honorary one like McAulliff) without a lot of hard work putting you at the top of the ladder, and I can only imagine part of what fueled their success was a lot of dreaming.  I'm so impressed that their dreams became the stuff of reality.  So here's a salute to the fourteen that were lost.  Godspeed, Heroes.  

The lost Challenger and Columbia flights are what we perhaps remember most from the 135 shuttle launches.  And we shouldn't forget.  At the same time, the shuttle made great advances in science possible and furthered space exploration.  All the shuttle astronauts worked hard for that -- some even died for it.  I for one am a little sad to know the landing of the Atlantis on July 21, 2011 is the end of an era.  When Eli is old enough to understand, I'll tell him about that chapter in his nation's history.

(Click here to read more about David Brown.)

 

I hope starry daydreams are ahead for you, Little Guy.

 

(Many thanks to Rex and Janet for Eli's spiffy astronaut shirt!  Local mama and papa friends, if you have a little space enthusiast in your life, you can visit the tiny space shuttle at the Westfield-Solano Mall in Fairfield.)

Eli's Nature Box

My father was a research paleontologist who specialized in invertebrate fossils.  In a nutshell, he compared modern day saltwater critters like clams, sea worms, and shrimp to their ancestors from the ancient seas.  He was also a nature-lover who taught me the names of the common Georgia seashells, trees, minerals, and such.  As a kid, I had my own hand loupe for looking at small items and we had a small library of nature guides so I could identify things I found on forest or beach strolls. 

I don't know if Eli will have an interest in such things, but I'd love to nurture his curiosity.  Thus we created a "Nature Box."  When we find neat nuts, shells, leaves, bark, and the like, we carry them home to place in this container so he can enjoy them longer and remember them better.  When he's a little older, we can do a little research to learn more about the items we find.  I first thought a wooden box would be best, but actually this plastic one we found at Target with woodsy green leaf/stone patterns on it allows more light in.

 

  

  

First Movie

"Tickets to my very first movie!  Three tickets to Winne the Pooh!"

 

"Wait a minute.  Just three tickets.  How is Pooh going to get in?"

 

"See, these are tickets.  You have to get yourself one, okay?"

 

"See you inside!"

  

  

  

  

  

 

So what did Little Guy think?  He was curious about the audience and the theatre almost as much as what was on the screen.  No questions or chatter -- just lots of looking around.  If truth be told, he got sleepy by the middle.  During these long summer days, he goes to bed before sunset and wakes up after sunrise, so he's not used to the dark.  Fine by me.  There was some very nice snuggling going on.  I had a lovely time watching a favorite old story with my child's smooth, soft cheek squished up against mine.  As soon as it was over, we asked Eli if he liked it.  A resounding "YES!"

One Mama's Two Cents:
It is a cute movie and has jokes the adults will enjoy.  I'm not sure how much Eli understood, though, because there was a lot of dialogue.  Still, it is a fun movie that doesn't move too fast and is just the right length for a first theatre experience. 

Stepping Stones

I've been trying to do more art projects with Eli, so I was wandering around JoAnn Crafts looking for fun ideas.  They have a whole summer "Kids Camp" section of inexpensive craft kits and the stepping stone one caught my eye.  It contained cement mix and molds with directions that were less complicated than baking a cake.  Objects to press into the cement were not included, so a trip to the beach was in order.  Such a jaunt in Georgia during July would mean blazing sun, powdery pale gray sand, and coquina shells.  At the beach just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, it meant chilly fog clinging to the hills, smooth multicolored pebbles, and the occasional purple clam. 

 

 

We were lucky enough to have good company -- our buddy Tiffany with her daughter, Robynn.  We collected pebbles but also dug a deep hole just for fun.

 

Exploring tidal pools...
(Those dots out there in the waves are surfers wearing wet suits.) 

  

  

 

After a nap (proceeded by a bath!), we got busy mixing cement.

 

I ended up using the small kit molds because Eli wanted a bigger slab.  We used a recyclable storage container to make his stone and he sprinkled it with a few scoops of beach pebbles.  (As a person who adores beach combing, I selected individual pebbles/sea glass and then placed them in my cement one piece at a time.)

 

Unmolding our stones twenty-four hours later...

 

Here are our finished stepping stones!  They are admittedly small, but that will make them easier to take to Georgia with us when we move home next year.  I love the idea of carrying a little bit of Northern California beach and good memories with us.

 

One Mama's Two Cents:
This is a really easy art project for smaller kids!  Wet cement sounds terribly messy, but it actually washes off easily for an hour or so after you mix it.  A little cooking spray helped our hardened stones pop out more easily.  This would be a nice hand or footprint project too.