Charlie the Coastal Explorer

For the past two weeks (just two-days a week) Charlie has been attending Costal Explorers - a program for 4, 5 and 6-year-olds. It is the Marine Biological Laboratory's kinder-version of Science School - a very cool program my brother attended and was involved in when he was younger.


Here I had just slathered on the sunscreen before day one; inevitably it gets all in his hair too. This photo is reminiscient of another photo I took of Charlie before he was one - and also right before he face-planted in the sand, and right about the time I decided going to the beach for the day was too hard with a baby. (I like for my fun to be fun.)

In Woods Hole, Charlie learned about vertebrates and invertebrates, living and nonliving organisims. He made a foam visor, visited the aquarium, touched sea critters, "went on a walk," and "rode in a van full of carseats."

Gullible me believed even that which I could not see - he later confessed to Mimi that the van was more of a creative liberty than a true ride.

I have proof that he:

• Created a clay imprint necklace of a shell,
• Squshed a tee-shirt onto a painted fish - of this he told me that one kid squshed a little too hard and what should be inside the fish gushed out, he also detailed the smell - this was corroborated by a fellow explorer, Peter, though I have my suspicions. His shirt does have a gooey matter above the fish print that one could assume was fish guts. But like I said, I'm not so sure.
• Wore his new frog boots nonstop.

I have reason to believe that he either ate or threw away:

• 2 cheese sticks,
• one oreo dunkums,
• one bag of cheetos - though this is highly questionable as no orange fingers came home
• sandwich parts

As they did not come home in the pack.

So what he did I am not exactly sure and have discovered the fastest way to amnesia is to ask a kid immediately following said occasion what he learned, liked the best, or just simply what he did. But as the conversations unwravel I find how much of a little scientist he really is.

Questions have always been his strongpoint - "what's that?" being the longest lasting, most universal, and ultimately most annoying. I will never forget a 50-yard stroll down the snack, chip, and a variety of bottled water aisle of Publix. Approximately 30 yards of one side of the aisle is dedicated to this liquid wonder. Every other step the question was repeated. Again, and again, and again. With a voice more than lacking enthusiasm, I told him again and again, "water." And that is how the game is played. He finds something he likes, latches onto it, and I attempt to vary my approach. Why do I feel outwitted?

Today he learned what sea stars eat - scallops, hermit crabs, energy beams (those are the things that are in water - there are beams of all sorts in water) and sea clams - shells. He also learned that starfish eat with their stomache - just their stomache, not their mouths. They use their mouth to eat plankton but not their stomache. They are called sea stars NOT Starfish - they are not fish at all. They live in the sea. Their stomache opens up wide and then closes when their predators come. A sea star regenerates an arm or leg when it gets cut off. Ed - isnt that a good name? - is a scientist who spoke to the Explorers today possibly while they were at the biological laboratory about...you get the drift.

All in all it was a good day.