Keeping up with Abs

DS & Abs with dinosaur friend

The goals are to give the grandchildren an opportunity to explore something they are truly interested in, while giving us some one-on-one bonding time. This past weekend was the first experience for the summer.

DGD-Abs and I went to Houston on Thursday and returned on Saturday. We stayed with DS and had a wonderful time. Abs has been reading about Pompeii, which we cannot convince her is not pronounced 'pompereye.' Her teacher introduced the class to non-fiction books and everyone else read one, then moved back to fiction. Abs is working her way through all the non-fiction. She has been so excited about Pompeii, that I decided to take her to the exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

We took all the children to a similar exhibit on King Tut when Abs' mother, aka ABW / DD-Ko, was about the same age. I had been long anticipating seeing the treasures and we had to go to great lengths to make it happen. DH was out of town but drove all night to get home in time for all six of us to drive to New Orleans the next day, where the exhibit was being held. It was quite expensive to get us all in but I felt the exhibit was worth the effort and expense. The two youngest children, including DD-Ko, ran through the exhibit and were finished with everything in about 10 minutes. We managed to corral them and stay a little longer.

With that history in mind, I feared that Abs would be through the Pompeii exhibit in record time. What a surprise! We each had our own audio system and Abs listened at every station. She asked DS to lift her so she could see some of the things that were placed too high for her, and she expressed great delight in seeing the things she had read about in her books. I had had some concerns about her seeing the plaster casts of bodies buried in the eruption, but she explained the scenario to anyone who would listen and expressed no discomfort. Of course, when we finished she wanted to do what any 7 year-old girl wants to do - visit the gift shop.

We opted for a late lunch / early supper, and headed to Benihana's hoping Abs would find the "show" the "chef" put on, entertaining. It was successful beyond our expectations as we watched Abs' face. The "chef" turned a slice of chicken into an inch worm and made it inch across the grill. After chopping the tails off shrimp, he flipped them into a bowl and, on the second try, into his shirt pocket. He made noises with the utensils, flashed knives, and finely chopped ingredients with great flourishes. The most amazing thing to Abs was his filling her rice bowl with fried rice and flipping it over to his other hand, She is still wondering how the rice stayed in the bowl when it was upside down. We greatly stressed that none of the above should be attempted by her at any time!

She topped the evening off by helping DS walk his dogs. On their return, he said the dogs were tired because Abs ran the entire way. The dogs flopped down on the floor and went to sleep, but Abs was still going strong.

Abs was really busy Saturday morning. After feeding the dogs, under DS' watchful eye so she would not overfill the bowls, she fed Rocket, the fish. Rocket enjoys 2-3 dried blood worms, but Abs didn't understand how that could possibly be enough, so she shook the container over the bowl several times. DS has no children yet, his first is due in August and I think he was beginning to wonder what he was getting into. He calmly put Rocket in a glass of water while he cleaned out the fishbowl. He thought it would be safe to ask Abs to put the dogs outside. He did not see Abs grab the glass with fish when she went to put the dogs out. Abs returned a few minutes later excitedly telling us how she had saved the fish that Otto, the dog, had almost eaten. She handed the rescued fish, still in its glass, to DS and explained that she had taken it outside to get some fresh air. Otto, who examines the world with his nose, "wanted to smell the fish."

"He put his whole snout down in the glass and tried to take a bite, but he only got a little piece of Rocket's tail. I rescued him."

Saturday we headed home....after breakfast with the Triumph Breakfast gang.... and a visit to the new Goodykoontz Girl Scout Museum. I bought a CD of GS songs and we listened to it all the way home. Bucky's in Giddings is halfway so we took a bathroom break and bought something for a picnic lunch. One more stop at a roadside park to eat and chat, then home.

Cost: $ for picnic lunch and ice cream, $$for the museum. $$ for Benihana (Thanks DS!), watching Abs' face and being with her.....priceless!

I leave next Monday for St Louis and Branson, MO, with 10 year-old DGS-Ch.