Our homeschool group had a class about the beautiful and ancient forest at the New York Botanic Gardens in the Bronx. The foliage was gorgeous, and we walked over a bridge (which Big Bird walks over in the opening credits of Sesame Street. something which fascinated Mikro) over a beautiful stream and saw a waterfall. I have been to the gardens many times, but never explored this area before. It is peaceful and picturesque, and definitely a place we will visit again.
The kids learned about the forest ecosystem, the lifecycle of forest plants, the forest as habitat, and they drew things living in the forest and made leaf rubbings.
It was a perfect day until nearly the end. Shortly before we were planning to leave, the kids were running around on the flagstone courtyard near the garden cafe and gift shop. Mikro was looking over his shoulder and tripped and took a hard fall, splitting his chin open and gushing blood all over the place. Instead of freaking out, I stayed calm, grabbed the first aid kit, applied direct pressure, saw that the wound was spread apart and might not close, decided to give sealing it with Nu Skin a shot before further traumatizing the shrieking hysterical child in my arms with a trip to the ER, sprayed it, covered it with gauze and a huge bandage, and watched to see whether it would keep bleeding and soak through. Luckily, the Nu Skin worked and the bleeding stopped. The crying was another matter, but a trip to the gift shop and a couple of wooden snakes and a see through frog with internal organs later, and Mikro was fine.
