Splish, Splash

The boys have been sharing the tub and there have only been a handful of emergencies. Sometimes Finn even lets Liam play with a bath toy or two. Not always.

Liam gets so excited now that he'll start waving his arms at the sound of the water coming out of the spout. It's hard to get them out afterward too. The water can be cold but they'd rather stay in there than get back to dry land.

It reminds me a little of Bert and Ernie. There's even a yellow rubber duck in the tub.

Air and Space Museum

Finn's been asking to go to the Air Space museum for about a week now and Sarah was able to take the kids there today. There is a new room full of experiments for kids to try. Finn was so excited that when I got home he started telling me about all of them.

After playing with the sliding air sled collider, Finn got to pilot a Cessna 150. Here you can see him in a steep left hand turn.

The kids were both well behaved all day and made taking them out for a trip more often quite doable. It sounds like they all had fun and I wish I had been there too.

No food's off the list yet

I remember fondly th days when Finn would eat anyting we put in front of him. Those days have been replaced by chicken nuggets and hot dogs. Liam is still an adventurous and eagerly shovels it all down. I know it won't last forever, but I like it for now.

New owner of the kitchen cabinets

After dominating the lower cabinets for over three years, Finn has passed the torch. Liam now is commander of the Tupperware and master of the plastic plates. We will now have to develop the picking-up skills. The item dispersal skill is innate.

Finn, who is prone to fits of jealousy, isn't exhibiting those traits . His toys are now way more interesting than a bunch of lids and cups. It's nice that he is OK with letting some things go to Liam. Though I'm sure that it will be a while until he gives away his toy excavator he got for his birthday.

Also, ignore that egg beater in the picture if you think it is a hazard.

Engineering Day

The National Building Museum had the engineering festival for kids yesterday. We stopped in to see what it would be like. Their were so many cool exhibits by AIAA, NASA, ASCE, and many more. There was a place for kids to make paper rockets and launch them. Finn made a paper helicopter and let it fly. The agricultural and bio-science folks had a popcorn display that drew tons of attention. Here a guy explains lift through the use of a broken wind tunnel.


Finn asked a brilliant follow-up question about Reynold's number and transition from laminar to turbulent flow that left the guys speechless. That's when we moved on to the chemical engineers. They were mixing up slime for the kids. Finn got a bag of blue slime and brought it home.



It's just water, borax, and Elmer's glue, but it was Finn's favorite thing he got there. I suppose there's nothing wrong with being a chemical engineer, but everyone knows that the cool engineers are all probabilistic mechanicians.

New Hair

This morning Finn mentioned how the teachers at school put shampoo in his hair. I thought that was interesting and feared lice, but Sarah was able to explain it a little better. When all the other kids go down for a nap, as the half-day kid, the teachers get Finn all to themselves. On Thursday they used that time to put mousse or gel in his hair and play dress-up.

He said he wanted to do it again today. So we went upstairs and broke out my gel and gave him big hair. He loved it and wanted to pose for a fashion shoot. Here is the result.

He has an expressive face. There's no way this would possibly become a daily exercise, but it was fun for a day. It did mean that he couldn't wear a hat outside because it would ruin his hair. The sacrifices we make for fashion.

Happy Valentine's Day

Last night we went to a Valentine's Ball. We got to get all gussied-up and eat steak. We had a good time, but got home way too late and Liam was not sympathetic, still waking up at 5:45.

For breakfast Sarah made some great Valentine's pancakes. They tasted like love. And maple syrup. Which may be what love tastes like.

Happy 13th Valentine's Day! If an early wake-up after a night out is all the bad luck we get for the 13th, I'll take it.

Liam and Finn Playing together

In an effort to restart my postng here and linking to Facebook, I am adding this video.

I will start blogging again and hopefully the blog should stay relatively current. Since work is getting back into the period of long hours, we won't be doing much other than mundane home activities like this: