Half days are meant to play.

Since the big guys have been in school full-time, it seems like we never have time to go anywhere during the week. They had a half day on Friday so we jetted off to a local kids' museum (and away from the Wii which is their new default plaything). And any outing is an excuse to go out to lunch, so we did that too, of course. Although I get a lot of "Oh, you have your hands full!" comments, they were all very good and we had a great day. I sometimes wonder why people make such a big deal out of having four kids, it's not like having 20 of them, but it's pretty much all we ever hear when we're out (particularly if we're down a parent and on our own with them.)

Sadie again went stroller-less which she LOVED. She is so curious and happy to putter about, even from the first moment we arrived when she tried out her hand at being a newspaper delivery girl and set about trying to distribute a big stack of papers she found to everyone she met. I have really considered building a magnetic wall at home for a ball run as the boys would spend hours making and re-making it. Liam tried desperately to thwart gravity but found that he just couldn't best the powers of the Universe. Sadie started off thrilled with the fog machines, but eventually got scared by a big girl who came in and shoved her over and after that she was terrified of the clouds touching her!

I could play with big magnets forever and Colin loved them too. When he discovered it was strong enough to hold the washers even with his hand in between, he was completely flabbergasted! On our last trip here, it was school vacation and too crowded to get to some of the exhibits so the boys were happy they could spend an unlimited amount of time at the woodworking center this time around. Liam, of course, refused ALL help and cut and built some kind of contraption only for it to fall apart at the end (the soft wood they use to aid the kids in hammering is not meant for endurance, apparently). He cheered up soon after when he got to try his hand at the blow dryer sports upstairs where he was definitely the MVP!

Eamon begged me to take a photo of the Earth floating in space. And then got more of a kick out of sticking his head over the air jet and blasting his own face. Sadie spent a long time sitting on top of a gigantic pin table with her brothers popping up underneath with ghost hands and feet and faces outlined beneath her. She also stole a bunch of rubber bands from Liam who practiced some advanced geometry problems on the peg boards. (He is going to be a mathematician, I swear!) I eventually salvaged them from her droolly little mouth. Colin made faces into the heat-seeking camera and was kind enough to let Eamon think they were actually of him (he was too short for the camera to see him!). All in all, a nice way to spend the afternoon and there were no breakdowns, pout-fests or lost children, which is always a good way to end the day.