She blinded me with Science

I was talking to a buddy of mine at Dudes and Donuts this Saturday morning (that is our bi-weekly men's breakfast and Bible study at church), his son is in Kennedy's class at daycare, anyway, he told me they were thinking about taking him to the Living Arts and Science Center for some big day of activities they had going.  So, I went home and checked into it.  Lindsy was going to some arts and crafts fair, so I thought maybe this would be something fun for Kennedy and I do to.

So we headed off for a Saturday morning full of adventure.  I didn't really know what to expect, but anyway I can expose her to science and pre-dispose her to following in my footsteps is worth the effort.  So the first thing we saw when we got there were these robotic golf cart thingy-ma-hoppers.  A local kids science club had developed them.  Kennedy got to push and pull the levers to control the robotic arm while I drove, even though she tried to convince me to trade places.

A scary preview of 13 years from now. 

 So I finally convinced Kennedy to exit the car to see what else was available for our enjoyment.  She quickly noticed the reptile exhibit.  Kennedy is quite fond of turtles.  She has 4 plastic ones she bathes with every night.  On a side note, we watched baby sea turtles hatch on tv the other night, and I thought, Oh cool, Kennedy must be really digging this.  Then the buzzards and storks swooped down and started devouring them.  I nearly fell off the couch and dropped the remote trying to change the channel.  But she seemed to understand and be OK with it.  Anway, they had two little racers and a box turtle and she picked up and petted all of them.  Thrice. 

Kennedy loves her some turtle.  Too bad she missed out on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze.

Now, I consider myself to be fairly tolerant of animals larger than my finger.  Anything smaller than that, I may or may not scream like a little girl if they touch me.  Snakes, I am typically not real afraid of; I am not saying I want a pet python, but I am ok being around them.  They had a couple of snakes at the reptile table.  I thought, cool, maybe Kennedy will touch one.  I mean, she has been exposed to quite a bit of wildlife just living in our house and she likes looking for bugs.  So to my delight, she wanted to pet them.  Of course, petting them was not good enough.  She promptly asked the nice gentlemen if she could hold one; like it was a soft, fluffy bunny.  Meanwhile, I am breaking into a cold sweat hoping she will not ask me to help.  Is that sad?  When do they develop this fears?  I thought we were born with them?  I am sure I was afraid of spiders when I was still just a gleam in my grandfathers eye!  Well, she held it.  And held it.  And held it.  "Kennedy, I think other kids want to touch it now".  We later went back to hold them both, again.  And, I am proud to say, I held the snake too!  No, I don't have a picture of it, but I promise I did.  I couldn't let her see her daddy be afraid.  But then it bit my hand and wouldn't let go! There was blood running down and my arm and it just kept biting!  Well, that's what I thought would happen, but everything went fine.  Now I know she is truly her mother's daughter.  She is a friend to all animals.

HSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! 

My little 'Jack Hanna'

Kennedy is now an official Snake Handler.

 Next on the list was the tortoise.  Which Kennedy accurately pointed out to me.  She loved petting him and ltrying to feed him everything she could find within a 10 yard radius.



So after some electricity fun inside, that pretty much concluded the science portion of the morning.  After the reptilian love fest, we went to try some of the artsy stuff.  They were letting all the kids paint a pickup truck with what seemed like a mixture of sidewalk chalk mixed with water.  Kennedy thought this was amazing.  It may have surpassed the serpentine extravaganza!  We painted for an eternity. 

She had to get creative on where to paint as most of the truck had already been painted.

The only way to get her away from this painting was to lure her to another painting station.  This one involved paint that did not wash out, so they gave her a t-shirt that would have been big on me.  The painting  was some style named after the guy who did it.  Sorry art people.  She did love it though.  If it hadn't been for the fact that I was freaked out her flinging permanent paint 30 feet in all directions, I may have let her go back to it the 4 more times she asked.



After that, we headed inside to try some crafts.  Her favorite by far was the clay city.  All the kids were making different buildings to create a city out of modeling clay.  Below is Kennedy and our house we built.

She will probably tell you she did the whole thing...

And because we are engineers, we made a bridge too.



We met her little classmate inside and they played together in some of the science rooms.  They then chased each other around the paint truck trying to find blank spaces to smear with paint. 

I think K had a great time.  I did.  It was so much fun to see how interested she got in all of the stuff, and how brave she was with the snakes!  We, of course, stopped for a happy meal on the way home, as every good daddy/daughter date should end with. 

Well, hopefully it won't be so long until the next post.  Peace out.