we took the kids to the city museum with TalkyTalky and TalkyJunior. the other kids had been several times, but it was MonkeyBeef’s first time. he had a good time, and we didn’t lose him, so we’ll call that a success!
the little kid ball pit, for kids 6 and under:
now, right next to that ball pit was another ball pit for the big dogs. and it was very, very thunderdome dodgeball deathmatch in there. teenagers ran around screaming, hanging from the cage walls and roof, swinging on ropes, and winging playground-quality dodgeballs at each other with deadly force. EvilGremlin begged to go over there. my exact words were, “the kids over there are really big, they’re playing rough, and i guarantee you’re going to get hurt. and if you really want to, yes, you can go.” so his skinny 9-year-old ass (which is roughly the size of your average 7-year-old ass) bounded over there and dived in. he skulked. he snuck. he sniped. he actually got in several really good hits and did an excellent job of hiding, and completely dodging the few hits that did come screaming in at him. and then, at about the 30-minute mark, he caught a ball right on his eye. there was a loud THWOCK, his head snapped back, he clapped his hands over his eye. it had to hurt, but he didn’t let on. he just slowly, carefully crawled over the balls and came back to sit next to his dad and sip quietly on his slushie until we moved on to the next area.
MonkeyBeef had no fear:
SpazMonkey, then PositiveRoleModel and MB coming down one of the bigger slides:
the caves in the basement, full of crystals with rainbow backlights, fake dinosaur fossils, tunnels that parents can’t fit through, exposed wiring, and lots and lots of darkness!
all the boys headed through yet another hamster tunnel… lemme tell you, i had to avoid killing my elbows, so instead of crawling through miles of tunnels, i freaking duck-walked through them. and my elbows and hands survived with no further damage, but the next day my legs were about as sore as they’ve ever been, far beyond even what a fencing tournament did to them:
outside on top of the building. PRM instructed DramaQueen to “look scared” 
we took a break for lunch on the third-and-a-halfth floor, ordering cheese pizza, more slushes, and caesar salad. now, here’s something i have to share about TalkyTalky. PRM and i use his name as a verb. when you get talked into doing something that you intended not to do, you have been TalkyTalkied. this is a guy who can walk up to someone he’s never met before, find out the guy intends not to drink that night because he has a job interview early the next morning, and say, hey, dude, that’s cool. but could you hold my beer for me? cool, thanks. yeah, it’s good beer; you should taste it! oh, right, right, you’re not drinking; i forgot. you should smell, it though; this is a really fresh keg, or maybe they changed the recipe or something. smells better than usual, right?
two hours later, mr. job interview is doing kegstands and can’t find his pants.
now, TT also uses his superpowers for good, and actually not only got SpazMonkey to try the caesar salad, he got him to eat an entire PLATE of the shit. this is the kid who, at age 2, could be chased from the dinner table screaming and crying if you menaced him with a forkful of lettuce. this is a kid who will not sit next to an adult who is eating something as nasty as freaking salad. but after listening raptly to TT’s treatise on how salad gives you superstrength, just like popeye and his cans of spinach, how caesar dressing was just like ranch dressing, only with MORE SUGAR in it, and then finding a small pile of salad “accidentally” on his plate, he was popping into his slackjawed mouth with a befuddled, almost hypnotized look on his face.
if i had a superpower, i’d want invisibility, but the talkiness might be a close second.
and now a few video clips. they all love the skate park, and MB is steady and skilled and fearless, and wouldn’t need watching at all if not for the fact that, upon hitting the bottom of the halfpipe, he feels no need to look out for 120-lb teenagers as he tears off for the stairs to do it again.
skate park movie 1
skate park movie 2
skate park movie 3
and he learns a life lesson: if you have to duck to get IN the tunnel, you’re probably going to have to duck when you turn around to come back OUT of the tunnel: tunnel movie
we also went to the st. louis zoo with PRM’s mom and stepdad.
for reasons that should be obvious (if not, say it three times fast and slur it just a little bit on the last word), the twits’ favorite animal was the buff-crested bustard:
EG’s favorite was the somali wild ass:
MB’s favorite was… not the penguins. DEFINITELY not the penguins. you approach the penguin house on a nice sunny day, and as you enter, you’re suddenly overwhelmed by darkness, cold, and the well-balanced smells of dead fish and poop. before you can even figure out what the hell happened, suddenly, at eye-level, some phallic-shaped creature dives into the glass-walled tank of water in front of you and flaps its wings to close in on you like a bat out of hell. as with all of his brothers before him, this reduced him to screaming in terror until he had gotten the hell out of the bat cave.
he did kind of dig the free-range peacocks, though. they look awfully easy to catch.
