Kit’s 36 years old today and to celebrate he took the day off work and we finally cashed in our membership coupon to the Dallas Nature & Science Museum (which is within sight of the towers of Baylor, where B was born. We’ll have to go by there and say hi to our NICU sometime.) We ran an errand on the way, got there as they opened and gave them our coupon (which worked, I’m always skeptical when we get these fantastic deals – in this case it was half price for an annual family membership!! Amazing deal.) We explored barely half of the museum and called it when we simultaneously needed to deal with Heidi contracting, everyone needing snacks, someone needing a diaper change, etc. But we’ll be back for sure, hopefully before I deliver. And we only visited the science building, there’s a whole different building for the nature stuff and we didn’t even visit the water play area or the dinosaur dig! Lots left to explore. We ate lunch on the back patio overlooking the pond with giant swan paddle boats that the kids really want to try.
The body exhibit part (not that body exhibit) grossed me out – explanations about things with cross sections of people to show you vomiting and mucous. Bleh, not good for pregnant lady.
School started yesterday so there were a lot of small children in the extensive downstairs kids’ play area but it was almost empty upstairs. The downstairs area is for kids 6 and under or older siblings with a special area just for 0 to 2 year olds, too. I can’t even begin to describe it – big, tons of cool stuff! Next time we go we’ll get better pictures of the mini-zoo area with turtles and snakes and hissing cockroaches and the crazy mirrors and farm area and sand pit and on and on…


And there were fun heat screens, too. Apparently my belly is HOT!

So we left there and survived the drive home (how thankful I am that we don’t have to drive into downtown Dallas several times a day to get to the NICU? OH, oh, so very thankful.) On the way back we hit the church cannery to restock on our staples (rice, oats, wheat, etc.) Hit home, I rested a bit (this child is getting big, and I’m getting contracty.) Then we ambitiously decided to go out for an early dinner. The kids all earned coupons to Jason’s Deli from the summer reading program & they have a great allergy safe & vegetarian menu. I guess we were feeling wild and crazy, taking all five kids out to eat?? To a place we know has some allergy triggers?
First sign that all was going to work out well, they let me get creative with the menu and make a vegetarian croissant with avocado instead of meat, etc. (And they let me do it for a great price.) Then as I paid they had the mints and toothpicks dish? And YUMMY EARTH lollipops!! Those are allergy safe! We eat those, the corn syrup and artificial dye free organic lollipops? Good sign. Kit got the veggeletta (he loves the muffaletta and they now offer a vegetarian version, though E attacked him for the olives and said they were “great!” She’s by far our most adventurous eater at the moment.) We got the older four cheese pizzas and so everyone got lovely vegetarian options and we shared bites with J but he was mostly distracted by his lollipops and our chips. Which unfortunately used corn oil, we realized after we let him eat a couple and his chin broke out in hives. Sigh…
But the manager came out when we asked about the frozen yogurt and he gave us the entire ingredient list for that and made us copies of their three pages of allergy listings for the entire menu. He was great, he also gave us their new gluten free menu (which we took for friends.) The entire staff was super helpful and kind and we were very impressed. Lunch was yummy, our kids were fantastic, it was a lovely birthday celebration.
THEN we went by the library and everyone again was behaved. It was kinda eery… you know what this means, when we manage to leave the house with all five kids and they act like angels? It means it’s time to have another baby, liven things up again.
Learn to juggle five just in time for six to arrive and humble us.
But this also made me realize that in so many ways our kids are getting easier, they listen more, they cooperate, they help each other, they were so well behaved at the restaurant! I’m really, really impressed with them. We still have our moments, of course, but I have hope.

