Hey Hey - Hey - Hey...Emmy...Guess What...

Rob and I had the distinct pleasure of taking my four fabulous cousins to the Omniplex – which is a hands on science museum. Here are a few of our goings on during the trip, beginning with the drive to the museum:

My cousin Beck just turned three this October. And all of a sudden, just before his birthday, his words started pouring out. A lot of times, I can totally understand him. For instance, the first thing he asked as we got into the car was, Hey Hey – Hey – Hey…Emmy…What’s this car called? “It’s a mazda.” I replied. (PS I love that the Mazda had enough room for all of us with seatbelts.) “A Mazda?!” He asked incredulously. “Yep.” He seemed satisfied. But unfortunately, I did not know what kind of car Lightning McQueen was - much less what any of the other race cars were in Pixar's movie “Cars”. His brother Matt did inform me that Lightning McQueen turned into a Ferrari at the end….which is an interesting thought. But they seemed ok with my ignorance. Sometimes, however, there would be a lot of words that I just couldn’t understand, as hard as I tried to listen. They always started with Hey Hey - Hey - Hey Emmy...Guess what..." ("What") and then they'd go from there. So usually, if I had already said, “Say that one more time…” I would just be like, “No way. Are you serious?!” That seemed to work most of the time. But then once, Matt translated something like “he said he's gonna stick a knife in your tummy” and I was like – what?!! That’s what he said - and what I was so positive about?! Yeah, that's when I decided I needed to try listen even better. He is an awesome, little kid.

In the 3.11 miles it took for us to get from their house to mine, which is where we were picking up Rob on the way , I had three distinct – “are we there yets." And I was like – no way! That really happens?!!

We picked up Rob who sat in the front seat. And we hadn’t gone very much further when I thought I heard a little, Hey Hey – Hey – Hey Big Kid… Thereafter followed a story about something I didn’t quite catch. "Did you just call him big kid?" I had to make sure. And indeed he had. So, for the rest of the day, Rob, a.k.a. “Big Kid” would respond accordingly to his new name. I was enjoying the newfounded nickname much too much to actually teach Beck Rob’s real name. I think this name probably suited him even better much to our amusement.

The science museum was really fun. It’s funny how all of my favorite things growing up are so ghetto now. I don’t know if it’s because they’re 20 years older – or if they were really always like that. I think it really might be the latter – which might be why it took dragging my parents to Big Splash or Showbiz Pizza through the years. I looked everywhere at the museum for the one thing I remembered loving as a little girl – the big magnet with the metal shavings you could build stuff out of. We found it eventually. But my microbiology class has ruined me, I think…because I started thinking about 25 years of germs and microbes accumulating from little people who were attracting a variety of bugs and probably weren’t washing their hands – and that neat-o toy became just a little less cool. I really liked the bicycle exhibit. I decided I definitely need to track down an old school tandem bike and wheel across the country – or at least across town to get snow cones. They were really cool. Wyatt was so good about watching out for his brothers and making sure they were ok. He's so smart and talented. It was fun to see he and Cali get along so well. She is just prettier and prettier and loved taking care of Beck. Matt’s energy was so awesome. He found so many cool gadgets and has such a neat take on life. At one point in the day he said, “Am I six yet? I’ve gotten so much older since my last birthday. I feel a lot older.”

We went to get ice cream afterwards, and in case you didn’t know it…the best way of eating ice cream is cone first. I’m not talking eating the cone bite by bite til you’re done. I mean – you’re supposed to eat the cone off the ice cream so that in the end, you’re just left with a glob of ice cream – with which you can use your fingers to dip bites into your mouth. Some of you out there might not have realized that’s how it worked. But now you know. Then, you’re supposed to go and terrorize your older brother with ice cream covered hands. And kidnap the treats of anyone else’s at the table you can get a hold of and enact the same events.

So, really, it was a wonderful trip. I am so grateful we got to go and so grateful to get to spend some time with my wonderful family. I love that Rob likes doing such things with me. It makes it even better. Hey hey, hey…hey – guess what… I am really a blessed woman.

Left to Right: Rob. Matt. Wyatt. Beck. Cali