Last in the Rat Race

Having lived in STL for a total of 14 years, I thought I had seen it all. Working downtown, however, now makes me more mindful of the state to the east that holds a number of attractions which I have previously overlooked.

Having a little person to educate and entertain has also sent me reaching for weekend fun to which, 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have given a second thought.

Just northeast of St. Louis lies a little river town called Grafton. To hear my IL friends talk of it, there’s little to see but a few dive bars and the Great River Road. For those of us who don’t actually SEE the Mississippi River but maybe twice a year, the Great River Road alone is worthy of a drive.

But back to Grafton.

It seems that each year, a certain number of bald eagles make their way to this little stretch of Americana to nest for the winter. Bird watching? Yeah, I know. Let’s go watch grass grow while we’re at it… But wait, there’s no grass growing because IT’S 20 DEGREES AND NOTHING CAN GROW AND WE’RE STUCK INDOORS FOR ANOTHER MONTH! So, knowing that Kate’s class was doing a bit of bird-watching themselves, I posed the idea.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. The kid loves adventure and she’s game. (Frankly it has to beat another day of running errands with dear ol mom…)

A friend from Stolar has a house in Calhoun County. Illinois. Seems ages away, but he talks of taking the ferry and enjoying the pretty drive. “You ought to go sometime and check out the eagles.”

Google map in hand, we ventured north to go east and it turns out there is not one but TWO ferry rides to take us to Grafton. (clearly the “scenic” route) What else are we going to do on another cloudy, cold Saturday afternoon? I have to say, by the time we found the ferry – Google directions work great assuming country roads are actually NAMED, score a point for the map feature on the iPhone – we were pumped. I had never driven onto a ferry before and found myself stupidly anxious about the whole thing. They run this ferry all day every day. Can’t be hard. Wasn’t. (whew – really, the thought of driving your car onto a little boat that only holds about 11 other cars… it makes you think. and plan how to grab your kid and bag before ditching if the ferry sinks.)

Kate was simultaneously amused by the ride and playing with my phone and shot these from her viewpoint on the ferry.

Brave face for the kid. (hm. i guess i do need dental work.)

(see, beautiful day. inspiring feelings of manic depression and hopelessness. oh, that’s right, we might just drown on this ferry ride anyway.)

Drama, shmama. We made it over the ferry and through the woods. By the second ferry it was old hat. On to the eagles.

Giving the kid credit, she has some really good ‘eagle eyes’ as my mom would say. Observant and not shy about shouting it out. I spotted the first eagle, high in a tree as we drove along the road. I pulled over and soon found about 10 other cars pulled up behind. That’s the trick to this. It’s not so much ‘eagle spotting’ as it is spotting your fellow bird watchers. (much easier to spot an SUV by the side of the road than a 18″ bird 50 feet in the air at 40 mph.)

Given all of the spotting, pulling over and photo-taking, this is the best shot we got that day. MRA was less than impressed with the photo, as was I frankly. Nothing could really capture how supremely cool it is to see such an amazing, fierce bird out in the wild (read, not in a zoo). Fits right in with the Harley riders who frequent the Great River Road. Riding helmet-less. But that’s a story for another day.

Today is President’s Day. No school.

Instead of Mike and I tag-teaming our child today, we shipped her off to her grandparents’ house for the day. She often hangs there when she’s been sick, feeling better, but still not cleared to return to school, and, at that point, she’s fun for my parents to have around – engaging, but not running at 100%. Today, a day when she IS feeling good (and running at 100%), she’d likely wipe them out. However, her cousin Rachel will be there today too, thereby lessening the pressure for my parents to entertain one or the other solely. They are there to play together… Ha.

Kate is nearly 4. Rachel just turned 8.

Kate will talk until your ears start to bleed. Rachel may say 10 words through the course of the morning.

Kate is clearly a tom-boy at this stage. Rachel is all girl.

Kate brought a little basket of dinosaurs to play with. Rachel brought bags (BAGS!) of dress up clothes.

Kate was looking forward to playing with her cousin and scaring g-ma and g-pa with her new roaring T.Rex key fob. Rachel prepped for the day by repeating to herself, “I will make her play like a girl. I will not play with bugs. We will play dress up. I will not play with bugs. I will make her into a girl.”

I don’t think the grandparents are aware of the little powder keg about to explode in their house today.

Here’s one more photo I found on my phone. A rare moment of stillness – and seriousness.

I wonder what she was thinking?

“Are dinosaurs really extinct?”

“What am I going to be when I grow up?

“Why can’t I have chicken fingers again tonight?”

Last Friday night, Kate and I headed to the video store on the way home from school. As is becoming tradition in STL these days, it was raining and snowing at the same time. Lovely. Just lovely. (where in the @#%^ is the sun?!?)

Kate had my phone and was shooting photos all the way home. I mean ALL the way home. Between the snow/rain and the click, click, click… I almost lost my mind. (it had been a reaaallly long week and the prospect of a crappy-weather weekend lay ahead…) Anyway, in scrolling through and deleting the exorbitant number of photos she managed to snap in 10 minutes, I ran across this one and actually really liked it.

Enjoy.

She’s always gotta be sticking that cold wet nose in my business…

If a piece of fruit has no flavor, does it still hold nutritional value?

Winter sucks.

Every once in a while, I find myself wrapped up in a project and forget that I have a little person who needs checking.

This oversight has resulted in:
* Paddi – the yellow lab – becoming truly yellow, courtesy of Kate’s tempura paint set.
* Kate’s bedding being transported from her upstairs room to the downstairs bath.
* A jungle-gym apparatus installed in the kitchen in pursuit of a snack on a high shelf.
I’m getting heartburn. You get the picture…

Still, do I learn? No.

This past weekend, time spent upstairs striping and making various beds pulled me away long enough that I wondered what she would have been up to in the interim. (in the interest of full disclosure – if the tv is running, chances are pretty good that the damage will be light)

Here was the result:

(you’ll of course note the tv on the background. i’m convinced this was the only thing standing between this getup in the living room and finding her riding the range in the muddy back yard. btw – what in the world is that cartoon?!?)

Sometimes, it’s obvious. Glimmer in the eye and cookie jar in sight. (even the dog could figure that one out. just after she knocked Kate over to get one for herself.)

Other times, it’s not so clear.

Do the chair legs represent various islands? Are they going to hop from one to the other? Is this a Cretaceous version of Wipeout? (which by the way is to-date the only show that has made me pee my pants. Just a little.)

And what, exactly, is the T.Rex going to do? The suspense is killing me…

Sunday morning Kate wanders into our room, still in her jams, Dinosaur Atlas in hand.

An hour and a half later, we finally make it downstairs for a little breakfast.
“Eggs?” I ask.
“Sure! Dinosaurs love eggs!”

A little TV.
“I want to watch Forest Park.”
interpreted
“I want to watch Jurassic Park.”
(MRA let her watch this once. I’m sure it totally scarred her in the sense that she’ll (a) think dinosaurs really exist on some beautiful, tropical island, (b) truly believe you can fall out of a car 30 feet off the ground and still be fine and (c) never use an outdoor toilet – you remember what happened to the lawyer, don’t you?)

Two hours later, I’m getting twitchy. We need to do something outside our four walls. A movie? Hm. Not a great option, but the weather sucks. We scanned the listings together and checked out trailers online. Nothing really struck a chord. (in retrospect, I realize none of the options had dinosaurs in them…)

“Can we go to the Science Museum?”
translated
“Can we go to the Science Center?”

Ugh. We had just been there 6 days prior – but with it then being a holiday, the exhibits were packed and I couldn’t get her out of the hordes of people fast enough. Didn’t fully scratch the itch.

So, off we go. Two miles down the road, she realizes she left Rexy – her stuffed T.Rex – at home. Tears, tears, pitiful tears until we turn around to collect her little dino pal.

Off again.

Thankfully, our recent membership in the Science Center is starting to pay off.
We park for free and head in.

Discovery Room? Free and only 5 minutes to wait. We trek up to the entrance and hit the first play exhibit she finds: flowing water, floating toys and diverting mechanisms. After 15 minutes she’s on to something else.

Dinosaurs.
(Shocking.)

We spend the next 30 minutes playing with T.Rex puppets and plastic dino toys. Another little girl watches us and, catching her eye, I invite her over to join in the play. “Lexy” is just as crazed about dinos as Kate – she’s full on with her T.Rex t-shirt and a T.Rex key fob hanging from her belt loop. It roars. (dear god, I hope we don’t go that far)

Good times and then time’s up.

Off to Dinosaurs Unearthed – for the third time since the exhibit opened last month. Thankfully, Kate is still young enough to get in for free. (they may not realize it, but they’re clearly losing money on this visitor!)

She dashes from dino to dino, explaining the name and details of each when she can – to whomever is standing nearby. She tries to tell one lady about the teeth of the Triceratops and how they’re made for chewing plants. The lady doesn’t get it, but see that my kid has the slightly crazed glaze to her eyes that screams “obsessed child alert! Better keep moving.” We pause at a replica of a dig site, a dinosaur skeleton half unearthed.

“Paleontologists put that together,” she explains to me.

Thanks to Dinosaur Train and Dr. Scott, the Paleontologist, Kate knows more about dinosaurs than I do at this point. Good thing Dr. Scott is married. And 40. I think Kate has her eye on him…

Ushered in my 38th birthday in style. Starting at 7:30 pm last night, I spent the rest of the evening, late night, early morning, and morning hanging with my kid as she prayed to the porcelain god. Good times. Good times…

(poor kid)