Dancing in the Rain with Worms and Bubbles

The girls have been playing outside quite a bit lately, enjoying the nice weather we've been having. But yesterday it rained quite a bit. They still got to play outside though. We went out for a bit while it was coming down pretty good. They loved it. We were all dancing in the rain and having a great time!

Later that evening, after the rain had stopped, we went back out to do some exploring. We were first greeted by a bunny hopping through the yard. The girls thought it was neat how the bunny just stood real still, like trying to become invisible so we wouldn't see it. But he eventually hopped away when the girls tried getting closer. He went to the bird feeder and found some treats that the birds had knocked to the ground.

But something else caught the girls' eyes...WORMS! They were crawling out of the rain-soaked grass. The girls couldn't scoop them up fast enough, they just kept coming! It was really interesting to see how they moved, scrunching and stretching their muscles, getting short and fat, then long and thin. They were moving pretty fast.

After studying them for a while, the girls set them free and headed in for a bath. They brought their bubble solution and bubble wands in with them and had fun blowing bubbles and catching them. Olivia thought it was pretty cool that she could catch the bubbles in the bath, but not outside; they would always pop on her hand outside. She decided to try an "experiment". She dried her hands, blew a bubble, and tried to let it land on her hand. Each one she tried popped. She wet her hand and tried again. This time the bubbles didn't pop. Interesting! Georgia thought it was neat that she could put her finger inside the bubble without it popping. Olivia tried it, too.

Here's a slideshow of some of our pictures from the day...

Olivia likes having the worms crawl on her skin. She says it feels weird and neat. She likes feeling different textures. I catch her doing what I do while out shopping, I always need to feel something that looks like it would be interesting to touch, mostly clothing. Last week when she was helping me make banana bread she told me she loves measuring the flour because it was so soft and she loved touching it. She wanted to put her hands inside the flour container. Instead, I put a cup or two of flour into an empty bucket and she went to town with it! I saved it so she can do it again when she feels the need.

Today we searched the internet for some fun worm games and sites. I'll have to post them tomorrow. There are some really good ones. This evening the girls were back outside digging up worms and playing with them. They made a see saw for the worms with popsicle sticks, and a merry-go-round from a spinning bowl. Georgia even had a worm race. Olivia was telling Daddy what worms need to live, what they eat, what environment they like, and what they don't like. Georgia was telling us all about their anatomy. She was telling me how they really need to use their muscles in their esophagus to move the food through their digestive system...because it needs to move sideways and doesn't have gravity helping like we do. I never thought of that before. That was pretty interesting. I also overheard Georgia telling Olivia how to tell which end was the head by finding the citellum, and that worms are both boys and girls.

Later Olivia comes up to me and points to my chest/neck area and tells me she can see all my nipples. What???!!! I look down and say, "What?" She says, "See, the brown dots." I said, "Olivia, you mean my FRECKLES?" Phew!!! I laughed quite a bit on that one!