A Night At the Museum

C and I spent last night at the Schiele Museum in Gastonia with Pack 24.  The final activity of the evening was watching Night at the Museum (II or III).  Yes, clever.  But not the highlight--though C did stay awake for the whole movie, which is quite a feat given that it started after his bedtime.  No, the highlight was dissecting a cow's eye. He said so himself on the comment card he filled out this morning--which he got on his own--a good indicator of his excitement about the evening. 

The evening included a variety of activities.  We started in the newly refurbrished planetarium to watch a "Grossology" movie.  It was perfect for young boys--the science of the immune system (scabs, zits, boils, etc.), the respiratory system (sneezes and boogers), and the digestive system (poop and farts).  Fortunately, it was only visual and sound there were no smells and goop to go with it.  The next event was the goop as the boys made a green slime.  Then they looked at various items (spiders, hair...) under a microscope. That was his least favorite activity as we couldn't always find the object on the slide.  Then they dissected the eye balls with a scissors and forcepts.  C followed the instructions and was able to cut the eye ball in half and then separate the lens, cornia, and the brown and blue layers (I forget what they were!).  Then they worked in teams on a "scavenger" hunt throughout the museum.  C's group contained older boys from his Webelos II den so they were the first to finish.  Then the movie and bed.

C was proud of the area he picked out for our bed.  It was in the gem stones area--the furthest room from the front door, and of greater concern to me--the bathroom!  He said he picked it because it was the darkest.  We were back in an alcove that had a partial wall in front of the gem display case, which  help to block the sound--which was helpful with snoring dads and video monitors playing all night. One of his friends slept next to us, which C enjoyed.

In the morning, we got to see and touch and hissing Madagascar cockroach, a bearded dragon (looks like a Komono dragon but its from Australia), and a python. 

M's highlight for the week occurred when a reporter came to the house. She wanted to stay in the room so she and I talked about the need to be quiet and still before the interview started. She sat at the front desk for a while but then got up and walked in front of the camera--while it was rolling of course--got something and then returned--walking in front of the camera again.  When I told her that she had messed up the shot, she was shocked and denied there was any problem whatsoever. At the end of the taping, she handed the cameraman the picture she had drawn of him while we were filming.  She even colored his clothes correctly and wrote his name by his image.  She also drew the camera and the tripod.  He was touched as no one had drawn him before.

The next day another reporter from the same station interviewed me at the office about a different story.  He reported his amusement at watching the video--he had kids the same age and thought they would also obliviously march back and forth in front of the camera--as well as Ben showing off M's drawing of him at the station.  Classic M--remarkable kindness and social cluelessness at the same time.