our first time at the philatelic museum. i read that they were having a tintin exhibit, a dragon exhibit, and an open house, so packed roo along for an afternoon adventure, while red bonded with her daddy. i thought roo would relish having me all to herself -- but she kept on hypothesizing what red would be doing if she were there with us, punctuated with "i miss her"s. they are awfully sweet sometimes, and seeing the way they look out for each other makes me kind of wish i had a sister.
other than tintin and dragons (which we were surprisingly unimpressed with or unengaged in), we ended up spending the most time at the "communication" exhibit. roo was fascinated with hieroglyphs and wall carvings. i parallelized it to her art works and letters posted all over my room, (and i'm secretly hoping she doesn't apply the carving technique).
she did try her hand at carving her name in clay, which wasn't as easy as it looks. we spent more time evening out the clay surface so that her scribblings would be distinguishable. :)
they also had a screen where you can see your name in hieroglyphs. she typed her name as well as red's. :)
i want a typewriter in my room, and was tickled to show one to roo. she loved the clickety clackety sound it made, and i kind of wish they had made it usable for the kids to show them how the typewriter made letter impressions on paper. (we were not supposed to type and press on the typewriter, but we managed to sneak a couple of key strokes in...eek!)
roo's got a long distance relationship with her 'boyfriend' so when i explained the process of letterwriting (and letter sending) to her, she was quite enthusiastic about sending out letters to her 'prince.' she knows i use seals for STP, and has requested for her own seal too. not sure if it constitutes child labor -- but i do want to teach her that things don't come free just because you ask of it, and integrate some 'value of money' lessons in. managed to bargain five sessions of clean-up-mommy's-room-after-red-messes-it-up to earn her seal. now, if only i can teach red not to constantly rearrange my cabinets.
finally, we tinkered with flag signalling, and had fun imitating the poses. we tried to move the dummy around to simulate the signals, until we realized that the flag hands need to be switched around. makes me wonder if anyone actually checks these things before they launch it to kids. but in a way, it's good. roo asks me in a surprised tone "mommy, do you mean the museum is wrong?" and it was a great lead into the idea that 'just because it's posted on a wall doesn't necessarily mean it's right.' i think i might have opened pandora's box.
informative afternoon! followed by the mommy retreating, and the kids rearranging my bedroom yet again. at least i have clean-up credits from roo. :)
singapore museum adventures:
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