The rain stopped a bit on Wednesday, so we headed uptown to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, pausing for a while on the way to play at (and climb on) the great statue of Alice and various friends from Wonderland...Ben and the other kids there had a super time climbing all over the statues, despite the rain-slickness of the bronze (which made all of the parents and teachers hovering nervously in the background a bit uptight...except me, of course)...
The level of detail and attention to climb-ability and exploration potential that the designer of this statue paid while working was amazing...
Ben and the other kids there had lots of fun, and kept checking in with grown-ups present to point out details from the books and/or movies...
Yeah...Ben tried to take off the Mad Hatter's hat...no dice...
After /sliding/falling until he was a limp mass of wet bruises, we went into the Met...took a brief spin through the Ancient Egypt wing, on our way to...
...lunch in the newly redesigned American Wing Cafe, which was awesome...great food while surrounded by great art...Ben thought the nakedness of the statues was a little weird at first, but after he got used to it, he was amazed at the reproduction of hands and faces and arms and legs (and butts ;) ) in the statues...
After a wonderful lunch, we took our time exploring the Ancient Egyptian exhibits...mummies and hieroglyphics and statues and gold and so much more...
We spent a fair amount of time in the room containing the transplanted Temple of Dendur (the story of which Ben found amazing and almost unbelievable)...
A miniature replica of the Sphinx grabbed Ben's attention...
After the Egypt section, we moved into the Hall of Arms and Armor...Ben loved the detailed work in the tools of war, he couldn't understand why people would want tools to be decorative as well, but we liked talking about it and looking...
This golden Lion's Head helmet really got his attention...
He liked the horse armor, and the lances and halberds that the mounted troops used...
As we worked our way through the rear of the 1st floor (based on our admittedly small sample of museums visited this week, that's where they keep all of the best stuff), we found some great statues of Greek and Roman origin, including this great one of Perseus holding the head of Medusa...
Thursday morning was beautiful, so we (and everyone else who had waited through 4 days of rain) headed to the Bronx Zoo with D...we had a fun time with Ben as our map-reader...finding all sorts of cool stuff, including this cool rhino statue...
In the reptile house, Ben loved getting right up next to the glass and hunting for the wee-beasties living inside each display...in this case a ridiculously endangered toad from South America...
SNAKE WARNING: Skip ahead to avoid gratuitous slitheriness and scales and flicking tongues and creepy eyes!!!
Ben was completely hypnotized (maybe literally) by this pretty little rattlesnake...
The gorilla exhibit is cool beyond belief or words...sadly, the glass is super-smudgy in almost every part due to gorilla-crazed kids and grown-ups smushing up against it to get as close as possible to the awesomeness...in this case, the gorilla was a bit further away than optimal...but Ben loved checking him out through this telescope (and if you check out the gorilla in question by clicking on the pic above to expand it, you may agree with me that he liked being watched by Ben)...
We headed out to CT on Friday morning, and after a day of fooling around, Ben was surprised by the arrival of Gail and Miles and Cedar...he spent quite a while telling her all about the week...showing maps, gesticulating wildly, using props, etc...
Today, after fooling around all day with hikes and cooking and playing with dogs, Ben headed down with some neighbors to play in the river...it was cold enough that only kids could have enjoyed it, but they played/jumped/swam in the mud and running ice-water for hours...Ben eventually came back covered in mud...
My dad hosed him off, in similarly freezing water, which Ben thought was fun also...and then Ben piled into a shower to clean off the ticks and leeches and ebola and mud
He headed back into the house, and is sitting on the couch now, chatting with Anti-Sarah and D, while we decide if it's late enough to start making cocktails and think about supper...
We've had a great spring break so far!
