An Update: The Observatory

Ball! Ball! Ball!

When you take a 14 month old to view replicas of planets, plan to hear this over and over again. He delighted and tickled me. I wasn't sure what to expect in the way of a reaction to our outing, but I was so pleased that he actually seemed to enjoy himself. He said, "Oh, wow!" He squealed,"Ooo!" He shouted, "Hi!" at every person we passed, and this event was well attended.

This joy was not at all diminished by the fact that at least 4 different mishaps could have stopped us from enjoying ourselves:

1. Dad couldn't come; he had work to do on his car. This work had to take place after two separate church events, one in Malibu, the other in Woodland Hills. Our little guy visited with family in Reseda during these events and had to be picked up afterward. Finally, dad had to be dropped off in Gardena to do said work. Which means I had a very ungreen Saturday. I drove to Reseda, Woodland Hills, Malibu, back to Reseda, and Gardena before heading to the observatory. MADNESS

2. Upon arriving at the observatory, I discovered that all of the diapers had been used at some point earlier in the day and that know one had deemed it necessary to tell me. We found "emergency diapers" in the gift shop thanks to my mother who boldly asked the cashier as we were buying a book and a ball if they had any. We had almost given up and determined to return home.

3. My mother met us at there and thank goodness for that. After all the running around we'd done, we landed ourselves in Griffifth Park at dinner time, hungry, and with little food to appease us. We went to the cafe where we purchased an assortment of things including a fruit bowl with strawberry yogurt. Micah wanted to feed himself. The result was yogurt flung everywhere; it's good thing we chose to sit outside. Here's the part that could have sent us home . . . Anywhere the yogurt had touched his skin, Micah had what appeared to be scratches or burns. Hmm . . . I believe we discovered an allergy to strawberries. Why strawberries? He drinks milk wihout reaction, so I don't believe him to be allergic to milk products. We cleaned him up, gave him some Benadryl and returned to the gift shop to buy him a shirt to replace the yogurt covered one he had on.

4. When we finally had an opportunity to explore the exhibits, we were all ready. Everyone was clean, well-fed and excited. I stood Micah next to the statue of Einstein, took out my camera, pushed the button and nothing happened. My camera battery was dead. We had come so far, overcome so much, only to find that we would not be able to document the event. I took out my camera phone. What else could I do? Determined to find out if there wasn't a way to get a higher quality photo, I sent my mother to the gift shop for batteries. They had batteries, but I needed a Nikon battery.




We had a wonderful time . . . Micah cheered and clapped all the way back to the car.

~S