My Last Passover Post - I Promise...

I could offer you another whole post on the remaining days of Passover, but I will spare you much of it, because frankly, it is time to move on.

However, just a quick summary of the last bit -

On Monday (second intermediary day) it was pouring so it was a good day to be indoors. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry, a great science Museum here in Chi town. (It was so much better when I was younger, before it was commercialized and went all high tech.)

My sis and the family came and another sis too, but try walking around as a group of 18 people, ranging vastly in age... So my sister from NJ took my other sister's two year old and hung with my three kids and me and every so often we would bump into other members of the family.

The Museum, like the zoo, was also lacking enough seating apparatus for me to unload my hefty load here and there, and my feet and back were already shot from the day before, so I literally found myself sitting on the floor here and there. Which is a feat unto it's own when trying to get back up.

But there was one exhibit where I stood for about 40 minutes and refused to move.

This Museum has had a "chick hatchery" exhibit for as long as I can remember and it is one of their more sought after exhibits. It consists of a partitioned glass dome that has very particular temperatures set inside. On one side of the dome are eggs waiting to hatch and some pathetic looking, freshly hatched chicks. On the other side of the dome, are the chicks that are already a few days old, all fluffy and yellow.

I have been fortunate when I was younger to "catch a hatch" which is actually amazing to watch. But as many eggs that there are sitting in the incubator with very "telling" cracks in it, one may have no idea how long it can take and how hard those little chicks work to get out, and how exhausted they are when they finally break free. And most of the time, one does not want to forgo catching other exhibits in order to stick around for lengthy amounts of time to "catch a hatch".

On this particular day, not only did I catch one, but I saw another within 20 minutes. Seriously, I had to stand there so long I was certain I would hatch before any of those eggs would. And for the first time, I video taped it. And to top it off, the Museum has become politically correct and now offers an incubator full of racial harmony, as indicated by the brown egg and white egg I witnessed hatching. For those of you who have always been curious about whether there is in fact a difference in the "product" of each egg, I can now tell you first hand - there is indeed. The chick from the brown egg actually had dark brown hairs down it's back while the white egg produced strictly yellow down on the chick.

RACIAL HARMONY - I TELL YA!


My sis from NJ with Ate and a nephew taking a peek at the chickies

The Museum was delightful as always, and way tiring. My kids were hardly interested in the chick hatchery but loved the children water play area, and watching balls get sucked up by a vacuum tube and disappear, especially Ate. And speaking of Ate and water play......

He was getting soaked...

...until I found the "Sears" sponsored slickers.

I mentioned in my first Passover post that Ate kept us on our toes quite a bit this Holiday. This mostly happened at my parents house where he got "lost" amongst the myriad of bodies in the house. This especially happened when his favorite cousin L. would approach him in her very seductive way while batting her long eyelashes and sweetly ask,

"Ate - wanna pay wit me?"

Those two are dangerous together, at one point locking themselves into my parent's bedroom - doing G-d knows what. They reeked terror wherever they went. They were caught opening the front door, ready to step out and take a stroll together. But the highlight - water play.

When my brother D. who went upstairs to use the washroom yelled my name so loud, EVERYONE went running. They were pretty much upstairs already while I was still trying to pull my expanded self out of the chair. By the time I was on my way up, passing through the kitchen, there was water raining pouring down through a brand new light fixture in the brand spankin' new kitchen. I tried to run (HA) and when I made it upstairs, Ate and L were found soaking wet with the evidence of a hand held bathtub spray still wet in their chubby little hands. Water was everywhere.

Aaaahhhhhh - never a dull moment...

A few more Museum pictures:


At a Circus exhibit.

This is actually Ate looking through a mirror through a small hole that I somehow found room to stick the camera through as well.


A farm tech exhibit... As soon as Ate spotted the GINORMOUS "John Deere" tractors, he was in heaven.