"Mommy... what's thaaaat?" Zelly asked and pointed to a spot far above our heads.
"Honey, that's the Space Needle."
"Ohhhh, the Pace Neemo, I see," She stared up in wonder as we walked across the Seattle Center grounds toward the Children's Museum. She kept twisting around so she could keep it in sight as we walked. "Mom, what's up there?"
"Some people are up there honey, there's a restaurant way up on the top and people are up there having dinner."
"Ohhhhh, I wanna go up there, can we go up there Mommy?"
Wendy and I chuckled and I answered, "Maybe some other time honey, we're going to play with the other kids, remember?"
The object of Zelly's fascination was momentarily blocked by a building we walked around, "Mommy, where is the Pace Neemo? I can't see it, where did it go?"
"It's still up there, honey. See, there it is again. Ok, time to go inside and play."
On Saturday we went to the Seattle Children's Museum as a part of the Rainbow Families of Puget Sound One Year Birthday Party celebration. The SCM has great activities and exhibits and is definitely the kind of place where you can let your own inner child out to play for a while.
If you ask Zelly what she liked most about the Museum, she'll say, "I went up on a mountain and saw some bats!" She's talking about the Mountain Top exhibit with a simulated mountain path, educational stations explaining photosynthesis, the importance of nurse logs and what kinds of critters live in mountains. Not that Zelly cared about that. To her a nurse log was a tunnel to crawl through. And the really cool, scary thing was the cave with bats. You walk into this large dark enclosure filled with the high pitched voices of bats. Walk around the corner and you're out of the 'cave' and there's a lava tube to crawl through, then up the steps to a slide that spills its young riders into the opening of a tent. Fun, fun, fun. Exciting enough for Zelly to go through it several times.
The museum has other sections demonstrating life in different parts of the world through scaled down homes, businesses and vehicles. Zelly enjoyed driving the truck with her moms in the back seat. We enjoyed playing our part by saying "Are we there yet? Why?", "Where are we going, Zelly? Are we there yet?" -- over and over again. She didn't get the joke and just kept answering, “No, not yet," without a trace of impatience.
She dashed around, with Wendy and I taking turns trailing her, exploring all the areas and especially liking the kitchens. And phones. She invariably found the phone in any section she was visiting and always stopped to make some calls. On one trip through, Wendy made some comment about Zell's fascination with phones and after I unrolled my eyes, I reminded her that our daughter did have someone to model after in that regard, and it's not me.
We explored and took breaks, visited with other moms and dads, explored more, ate birthday cake and had juice, for about 3 hours. I was pooped by the end but Zelly could have gone on for another hour or so I'm sure. Ahhhh, the energy of youth. After one more trip up to the mountain top, we packed ourselves up and said our goodbyes. We rode the elevator up to the main level of the Center House and made our way outside. Zelly thought the elevator was pretty cool. We stepped outside and luckily it wasn't raining. Once again, the Space Needle towered above our heads like a flying saucer tethered to the ground.
"Mommy!! The Pace Neemo! I see it, there it is, do you see it?" Zell could hardly contain herself, she was so excited and we assured her that we could see it as well. "Mommy, can we go up there? I wanna go up there." She paused for a moment, apparently thinking, "Mom? How do people get in there?"
We explained that you go into an elevator, like the one we were just in, and rode for a long time, high into the air until you got to the top.
"Ohhhh, a elebator... Mommy, the Pace Neemo is HUUUGE," she used a special voice and a goofy facial expression to illustrate just how overwhelmingly big it was. She spent the next several minutes telling us in various tones of voice and vocal volumes just how very huge and tall the Needle was. We got to the car and she was temporarily distracted by the crackers I'd pocketed and the desire for apple juice, which we didn't have. Wendy got us back on the road and the Space Needle played hide and seek behind the buildings we passed. Zelly wanted to keep track of it, and kept asking where it was. I pointed it out, or told her to look out the right hand window and she kept tracking it. We approached the point where I knew it was going to slip out of sight for good.
"Zelly, we're going home now and pretty soon we won't be able to see the Space Needle anymore. Maybe you should say good-bye to it?"
She was quiet for a moment and then said in small voice, "Good-bye Pace Neemo, I will mitts you.." Pause. "Good-bye Pace Neemo, I love you and I will mitts you. Mommy Honey, Mommy Camey, I said 'Good-bye Pace Neemo, I love you...'" She continued on like this for a while before settling down with her cracker and her lamby. She fell asleep soon after.
This morning, while Wendy and I were getting ready for work, Zelly was drawing and coloring in front of her morning cartoons. I asked her if she was going to draw a picture of the Space Needle and did a quick pencil sketch of it for her. She pointed out that it needed lights, and added them in various colors of crayon. It looked even more like a flying saucer than the original. She then went to work on her own rendition. She created a saucer like shape, perpendicular to the bottom of the page and added many short 'legs' to the bottom of it. Brightly colored dots were added all over the surface of the saucer. It looked a lot like a jelly fish with techno-color chicken pox.
"Mommy, look at my Pace Neemo... it has lights, see?"
"Wow, that's a great Space Needle, honey. Now, let's get shoes on so we can go."
What a kid. I guess we'll have to go to the Space Needle sometime, I've never been up but always thought it would be cool. Sometimes you have to be pushed a little to do those things you always wanted to do, even if the push is coming from somewhere down by your knees.