"I want to go back to my house," Tripp said, shrinking back from the clamor.
"Oh, no, buddy, this will be fun!" I enthused.
Once inside, however, the noise was amplified in thunderous, booming echoes. The shrieks and giggles of happy kids was deafening. As lines of wriggling giggling children snaked through the ground floor, Tripp buried his face in my shoulder.
"Too youd!"
"It is pretty loud," I agreed, hastily purchasing our tickets. "Let's go see what's outside."
As I placed Tripp on the floor, he swiveled instinctively toward the museum's shop. "I sink it is not too youd in there," he said.
"Let's check outside first."
Just beyond the door was a sandpile with buckets and shovels, and beyond that in a secret bower was a wooden bench surrounded by plants and flowers. On the bench was a book. The book was "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," (the long form) containing the words to Tripp's favorite song. As we sat together and read, a young male counselor strode by. "The Itsy Bitsy Spider?" he asked. "Dude, I love that story."
We explored a bit and discovered an amazing area of pumps and shower heads that released water when one tugged the end of a rope.
"Wow!" I exclaimed.
"Too wet," said Tripp, waggling a finger.
"Let's just see," I said, guiding his small body through a gate. There was a stream with gurgling water in which one could wade, a series of sluice gates that could be raised and lowered to let orange and red plastic fish and boats slide down, and wheels to turn and buttons to push to move water down spouts. There were aluminum buckets to fill.
A small band of sopping wet toddlers splashed happily about, observed by parents.
"Too wet," Tripp said, drawn in spite of himself to a wheel like the wheel of a sailing ship which he began to spin, watching as a small trough filled with water.
"Hold my glasses," he ordered, doffing his purple shades. "There is a yot of wadduh."
"I like his look," a dad observed, "Especially the collar turned up."
My grandson was wearing his khaki shorts (over big boy space ship underpants,) a green polo shirt with the collar just so, golf socks, and brown canvas sneakers with velcro tabs.
"No, my wheel," he said as a little girl with long brown hair appeared to his right.
"Can we share?" she asked.
Tripp looked doubtful.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Lily."
"Lily, this is Tripp," I said.
Lily and Tripp shared the wheel, then turned a crank which moved a pulley to which small canvas bags were attached. The canvas bags scooped water from another trough, then released it into a bucket.
"This is how some people have to work together to get water," Lily explained.
"Why?" Tripp asked, not minding that the front of his green polo shirt was now drenched.
"Because they live in different places where it isn't so easy to find water."
"Why?"
"Because water doesn't come out of the tap."
"Why?"
"Why don't we take off your shoes and socks," I interrupted.
"No."
"If we take them off, you can splash in the stream and lift the sluice gates."
A few minutes later Tripp was standing on a block of wood lifting gates and watching as his blue plastic boat sped down the current. He returned to the wooden wheel to fill pails and empty them.
"Watch me," he said to Lily.
"Where's my number 5?" He turned to me.
"What number 5? The pails don't have numbers on them," I said.
"I need my number 5!"
Lily and I looked at each other and began to search for a pail with the number 5 on it. After examining 8 to 10 pails, we found it. A pail with a tiny 5 stamped upside down on the bottom. Lily handed it to Tripp without a word.
"What are you, Rainman?" I laughed.
"No, I'm Tripp!"
"I know you are," I said, and kissed the top of his head,
When Tripp was completely soaked I led him over to a chair and removed his shirt and sleeveless white undershirt.
"Oh, no," he protested.
"You don't need that undershirt," I said, knowing it to be a peculiar penchant of Nora the nanny. "It's too hot." I used the undershirt to dry his feet.
We wandered back inside and into the shop where we purchased a new tee shirt, and after circling a few dozen times, and I had counted to 5 slowly, Tripp grabbed a microscope. And a ball. And a brightly colored octopus that clanked when shaken.
"How about just the microscope," I said.
"Okay, Beauma."
We ventured into the bubble room, grabbed some colorful fruit snacks from the cafeteria, called each other on phones from my childhood, entered a room with lots of drums and xylophones that could be beaten incessantly, and then into a room with SHHhhhhh written on the walls and round comfy looking cushions, which led one's grandmother to suppose it to be a quiet room.
"Let's sit here for a bit," I said.
BABABABOOOOM! WHOO! WHOO! BOOM! CHUGGA CHUGGA!! burst from unseen speakers. Purple and pink strobe lights began to flash.
For a small boy sensitive to noises, this was catastrophic. We were o-u-t OUT of there.
"That was very scary," Tripp shuddered.
"It sure was," I said.
We wound down a suspended bridge and jumped into a pile of sand. There were sand dunes and beach grass and a table ringed in sand that could be covered and then scrupulously raked off with a small rake. Gentle lights pulsed. Tripp wore his shades.
"A few more minutes and then it will be time to go," I said.
"I'm cleaning," Tripp said. He stood between two girls who poured sand onto the table's smooth plastic surface as Tripp raked crisscrossing patterns. Crowds of children whooped and shouted around him, but my damp, sandy grandson was blissfully oblivious.
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