Matt wasn’t with us on our last visit to the center, so he didn’t get to experience Thomas’ obsession with the boat. As soon as we got our tickets, Thomas raced toward the stairs and ran straight to the boat - Matt has no clue where he was going, but dutifully followed along.
This boy loves his boat! We did manage to drag him away from it without spending an hour there, which I consider to be progress.
He usually runs by the entire front part of the center (once he is done with the boat). This time he seemed to notice the wall of numbers that correspond to an audio segment on the handset. He, of course, thought it was a remote and was trying to turn things on with it. I did manage to get a audio clip playing and he held it up to his ear to listen. To Thomas? Booooooring!
That was the end of that…
We bought Thomas seal “art” when we visited Brittney & Duncan in Alaska two years ago. It was too big to safely pack in our luggage, so it stayed in Alaska until Brittney travelled down to Texas. And a few months later it was back! We decided that Henry needed seal art for his room as well, so we grabbed another painting while we were there this time. Both of the paintings were done by Tongass. I can’t really tell the seals apart, so I am assuming this is Tongass thanking us for supporting his creativity. :)
The sea lions are much easier to tell apart, because there are a few. This is Woody, he looks especially proud here because his little baby is doing well and actually starting to swim around in the big tank. Any parent knows what a sense of pride you have in your offspring when they manage such big development milestones!
Thomas checking out the octopus sculpture made from trash pulled out of the harbor and bay. I think it’s a really neat sculpture, but the little guy usually runs right by it. This time he stopped to (briefly) check it out. A connoisseur of the arts or just entranced by bright colors? Hard to say!
Henry, as usual, was missing most of the fun being stuck in his car seat. He didn’t really seem to mind though, he was as happy as his always is!
I wanted to enjoy the view off the back deck of the center for a little while, but Thomas kept running back inside. So I decided it was the perfect place for a snack break. We all got to enjoy some sun and Thomas was happy to sit there and finish his fruit pouch. Win-win!
Another new activity - Thomas noticed the chalk board at the end. I think you are supposed to write how you will help maintain the sea and marine life health, but most people just doodle or write their names. I managed to find a piece of chalk big enough for tiny hands and Thomas happily contributed a doodle to the board.
We’ve never done the penny thing before, even though I loved making them as a kid. I figured he had behaved so well, why not let him make one??
Mistake!!!
He was super into it, but he didn’t want any help - standard toddler phase we are going through right now. But it gets a little hard to turn once you get to the penny smashing part. I kept trying to help and he kept yelling at me to go away. We somehow managed to get through the penny by me turning it when he let go of the wheel to shoo me away.
Somehow we ended up decided to do it again for a second penny… Do we not learn??
I think Matt ended up carting him off once it got to the hard part and I spun through it fast enough that we didn’t hit full toddler meltdown. Crisis *mostly* averted.
(And as I was uploading this photo I realized it looks a lot like the boat wheel - maybe he thought he was steering a boat and we were all trying to send him off course??)