These are the most steps I have taken this year I think (which is shameful) and I had a person half my height along for the entire ride, so I am guessing Smallsteps did almost twice as many. We swam in the pool morning and evening also, and she was doing doggy paddle laps with floaties on her arms.
She is asleep.
Our first night in the hotel was a bit of an adventure too - for me at least. I tried to go to bed at the reasonable time (three hours earlier than normal) of 11 pm, only to wake as expected before 2 am. I don't know why - it doesn't matter how tired I am.
I finally fell back to sleep at 4ish only to be awoken ten minutes later when Smallsteps fell out of bed. She is used to having a side on the bed and the hotel one doesn't have one, so with all her tossing and turning - I awoke to a very loud bang. Luckily, she was unhurt and after a quick pee, she fell straight back to sleep, unlike her father.
Today's adventure began with a swim, a hotel continental breakfast (where Smallsteps ate more than me), a walk to the train station and then to our destination for the day - Heureka, an interactive science museum.
I had a feeling that it would be a bit over her head and she would get bored within an hour, but we were there for four hours and she was protesting us leaving, until she was given the choice that if we stayed, we'd have to skip the evening swim, as the pool is only open for two hours between 5-7.
An easy choice.
Honestly though, I would have liked to have stayed at the museum also, as some of the things there were a lot of fun.
Like this:
There were balsa wood bases, wooden wheels, screws and hooks, rubber bands and bolts to build race cars from. There were three tracks (Smallsteps starting one below) to race on, with them having a digital timer to see how fast they could go. After our first attempto was 4.33 seconds, she really got into it and we built a few more throughout the day and got it down to 2.83 - fair enough, Smallsteps didn't do much of the planning or execution, but she was loving it and wanted to keep going back there to play some more.
She and I have fun wherever we go, because I essentially make everything an adventure and give the things we do a "persona" that she can interact with. So today, everything she was playing with had a funny voice and some kind of character that helped her understand what was happening - like sinking a boat (pictured below) by filling the water with bubbles.
There were lots of things to interact with there and test, so I would read her the task and then ask her to predict what she thought was going to happen. Occasionally she was right, but most of the time he was surprised by the results and would test it again and again.
There is also an ongoing display with a natural disaster theme with a light display for water, wind, fire and earth that she really got into. She connected with the water one the most, but also loved the fire display. Again, we visited it a few times and she just sat in there, listening to the waves and making whale noises.
One thing that surprised me was that we watched it the first time and she immediately retained the entire pattern, knowing when her favorite bit was coming up, as well as mine. Pattern recognition used to be one of my strengths - the stroke killed it.
There were some pretty cool exhibits there and I wish I had taken pictures of more of them, as I think they would be good for posts, but I was too busy having fun with Smallsteps to take the camera all of the time.
This one was a bit morbid, where the ball bearings represented people and the job was to direct them with some inadequate fins to try and save as many as possible from different levels of suffering. Smallsteps didn't get what it was really about, but enjoyed the challenge nonetheless.
And then, there were some rats. She was thrilled about this as these are close enough to mice in her opinion, but she was surprised at how big a few of them were. They had been trained to do various tasks like put a ball through a hoop, but they only do that sometimes, so we just got to watch them get fed and play - they were happy little things!
And speaking of patterns, there was also a "wood" exhibit that was pretty cool, where they showed different sides to wood production, including all the different ways they can cut logs into lumber. We also got to design and laser engrave a wooden disc, which Smallsteps enjoyed a lot too, but the line got too long for her to do it again.
I just liked the uniform patterns of things around the place, and there was something calming about the smell of sawn wood. It reminded me of my grandad and his workshop when I was a kid.
But as you can see, she was one happy little camper for the day, but as we were walking to the hotel after dinner, she began to cry. I asked why and it was because we only have one morning left before we have to go home again.
She has liked the trip at least,
I have too and while I am tired, I am really glad that we have done it and I am happy she was able to put up with me for a couple days. Several times a day I have thanked her for spending the time with me and she has thanked me for making this happen. She has been really sweet and the only tears there have been is because our holiday is drawing to a close and I think we all know what that feels like -
So she has learned something.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]