Although this weekend started early with Calvin getting the stomach flu and having to stay home for TLC on Friday, he quickly recovered and we managed to salvage some of the weekend. This one, like recent weekends was filled with fun.
After two days in the apartment, dad planned an outing to the Museum of Natural History, where Calvin was as much enamoured with the butterflies as he was the dinosaurs and African mammals. Dinner at an Upper Westside Japanese restaurant helped to restore our feelings of still being connected to the adult world that inhabits that Brigadoon-like place called Manhattan. (At least in terms of experiencing it one day every hundred years.)
Today, I’m proud to say, involved Olympic-worthy parental tag teaming that enabled us to elegantly avoid and distract from requests to watch a DVD. No TV watching in our rainy and cold neck of the woods. Instead, a new train track integrating the airport; significantly improved construction with these polygon discs; and piece de resistance Tinkertoy structures.
First off was an amazing, inetractive “humpback bird.” This new species features multiple beaks, stabilizers (this is what happens to concepts and vocabulary when you really get into fire engine pumper trucks); and a water wheel. Calvin explains and demonstrates his creation in the video. After a destructuve dismantling of the humpback bird, Calvin and Papa created a bull in pasture, and I got to see how those orange connector pieces can be used in an old Tinkertoy hand.
Oh yes, we also fitted in the arts for a well-rounded weekend. That would be in the form of Calvin and Papa jammin on his guitar.
Last weekend we visited the NY Transit Museum in Brooklyn. It’s nirvana for anyone who loves things that go. You can get behind the wheel of a city bus or two, and dash to and fro between subway and Long Island Rail Road cars to your hearts delight. The only drawback is the well-stocked shop! In the video below, Calvin enjoys hollering, “All aboard!” from a turn of the century subway car.
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