Things that Make You Go "Llllll"

"Loom, Mom," he said, "not a 'yoom'."

And so Bud hit another milestone and a little bit more of his young childhood faded away: he is beginning to pronounce "ls."

We were at the "dinosaur museum" yesterday, showing Gommie the Silk Road exhibition, with its silk loom, that we had so enjoyed a month ago with Ma, Gong, and Goo (and, between two viewings, with kids, I think I've seen almost the whole show now!). The kids loved pulling Gommie from the camels to the worms to the musical instruments to the market to the videos to the astrolabe to the water clock. "Gom," Sis would implore, "come here!" Yep, "Gom." Just like I am often now "Mom." But whereas I don't mind at all, Gommie doesn't particularly like the shortening of her name. And sometimes adds the "mie" to the end herself.

Anyway, Gommie didn't enjoy the exhibition as much as she could have on her own, with all the leisure time to look and read and reflect, I think. It's hard to be the grandma sometimes. But she was a sport about wandering around the whole place, seeing dinosaurs and dioramas and the Discovery Room. That was a big thing this trip: Sis loved playing "I Spy" with the baobab tree replica (looking for hidden animals and evidence of animals like honey and dung), while Bud both excavated dinosaur fossils and pieced together a dinosaur model. One part I enjoyed was standing in the turret overlooking snow-covered Central Park and beyond to the midtown skyline. It reminded me of the view of Central Park from the 5th Avenue office where I worked, which was one of my favorite parts of that job.

We didn't stay to close the museum as we had on our last trip, being more tired this time and with no performance in the middle that required restful and rejuvenating sitting in the dark for a long time. But we did get a few treats in the shop--a new T-Rex for Bud and a bag of pink rocks for Sis--and fruit cups in the cafe before heading home.

But the journey wasn't over, for Sis and Bud played caravan in their beds long after bedtime, with their critters backing their things and heading from Baghdad to Xi'an. Though, I don't think there were any camels . . . .