Today has been an odd day. Henry woke up before 5 am and was ready to eat breakfast. He asked to watch a movie, and since it was so damn early, I said ok- he had time to watch one before school. Tommy has been on a costume kick and because the human torch was in the laundry, wanted to be the red power ranger today. This means that he needs help getting in and out of it every time he needs to go potty, and needs to have the legs rolled up repeatedly or else he trips over them. . .

Here are some photos from the first day of school:

(Technically, Thomas isn't wearing a costume here, but pajamas.)

(Here we have the human torch)

We had such a fun weekend!! We visited Cincinnati- a couple hours away from us. Bill's brother and family live there, and they have an aquarium that I have been wanting to visit. The city also has a fireworks display for Labor Day.
Saturday morning we went to the aquarium. Henry stampeded through the place, barely looking at any of the fish, repeating over and over "I want to see the sharks! I want to see the sharks! I want to see the sharks! I want to see the sharks! I want to see the sharks! I want to see the sharks!"
He stopped briefly at the tank that showed wave action on a shoreline. It was hypnotizing to watch the colorful little fish be tossed around by the wave, then regain control, only to have it happen all over again.
The next exhibit that held Henry's interest was this one:
The animal on display was an otter, but Henry didn't really care about him much. He just loved, loved, loved the waterfall.
When we were finally able to drag him away from the waterfall, we came to an awesome coral reef display. The photos don't capture it very well, but the aquarium goes over your head and under your feet:
Henry was mesmerized. It was so rewarding to watch him and know that he was truly enjoying himself. A diver dropped into the tank and swam around adjusting things and feeding the fish. Henry scampered back and forth, always right in front of that diver. He has always loved the divers at our zoo too. I wonder if he will learn to dive someday?
The sharks were awesome, and there were divers in with them too! One of those divers knocked on the glass and motioned to Henry! He tried to play "pat-a-cake" with Henry through the glass, and although Henry didn't quite have the motions down, it still thrilled him to no end!
We hit a rough spell when we made him move on from that area. I guess if it were just me and Henry we could have sat in that spot all day long. But there were other people to consider, so we had to move along.
The next display was a shark "touch pool", but Henry was having a meltdown and wanted no part of it. Same thing with the penguin display. Fortunately, there were enough of us there that I could walk ahead (or lag behind) with Henry, and Thomas could still experience all the things that he wanted to see.
On your way out of the aquarium, they route you up above the shark tank, so you can look down into it one more time. That was nice for us, so Henry could end on a satisfied note (there are pictures of sharks on the wall, and the water is down below):
Visitors are then funneled out through the gift shop (of course). I bought Henry a souvenir puzzle, shark book and shark sticker book. Thomas picked out 2 "chomping" animals (an animal head on a stick with a trigger to make their mouths move) and Kate (still a kid) picked out a stuffed animal shark.
Henry is supposed to bring a picture of his family in to school, so here we are on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River:

Saturday turned out well because we then went back to Uncle J's house to watch football. Henry was able to chill out up in his cousin's bedroom, looking at books, for as long as he wanted.
Sunday we checked out the Cincinnati Zoo. I will tell about that next time.