Pentecost Weekend

We spent this last weekend at the Knights of Columbus State convention in Cleveland. True to form, Kwamai was very upset about having to go, and then very upset about having to leave. On Friday evening we arrived in time to have dinner in the mall attached to the hotel, and then Erol took Kwamai and Felicity for a swim in the pool. Saturday, I took Kwamai and Felicity to the Cleveland Science Center. Fortunately there was a children's area that both of them enjoyed enough to enable us to spend quite a bit of time there. Kwamai socialized in the giant ball pit while Felicity shoved plastic balls through tubing, played on a "big red car" and slid down the slide as her favorites.

I noted one interesting moment involving Kwamai and the ball pit. There was a lever (see Kwamai seated next to it here) which, when pulled down, caused balls to be dropped down out of a bucket overhead into the ball pit.

One grandmother came along and found the lever rather hard to pull, and she mentioned to her grandchild that it must be broken, and she went off to ask the staff for assistance. In the meantime, Kwamai told the child, "it's not broken, you just pull it like this" and proceeded to yank on it with all his might, and the balls dropped out. The staff person walked the grandma back over and explained how it works, only to find the bucket closing up again. I just found it interesting that the adult presumed it should be easy to work, while Kwamai thought nothing of needing to give it his full steam to operate.

Another adventure of the Cleveland trip was discovering mayflies. These creatures were everywhere, and were responsible for the outdoor watertoys area being closed at the Science Center. I was told they lay their eggs and then die by the next day. Kwamai was extremely sad at this news, and mourned the poor mayflies all the way back to the hotel. We still need to research them further to learn the whole story, but if you enlarge this picture, you can see them all over this window:

Felicity, for her part, did fine. While we haven't done a longer car trip in awhile, this was the first trip she did not ask to be nursed during the driving!

Upon return home, we went to a Pentecost party given by some friends on the occasion of the Confirmation of three of their daughters. A highlight of the evening was singing various tunes together. Felicity enjoyed that and clapped along and tried out a few of the instruments that one guest brought along. Kwamai took a break from his socializing (when I went to check on him at one point a boy smilingly told me "Kwamai's beating us all up, and it's FUN!" -- promptly followed by Kwamai: "I'm not really doing that, Mama!") for a tutorial on the djembe drum like this one:

What natural talent! The drum owner encouraged me strongly to get him into music as it helps him to focus and calm himself. Perhaps I should look into it. Then I'd just need to find an outlet for him to play... perhaps children's choir!