Take your daughter to work day

On Wednesday, Ukkie was closed for a staff retreat. So Jake took the morning shift, I took the afternoon, and we switched off up at work so Elena could come and visit the flume. She has been pretty facinated by the flume, especially when I 'get flume water on my pants' and have to shower when I get home right away. Now, when I drop her off at Ukkie she often announces, 'My momma's going to the FLUME, she is going to get flume water on her pants!!!' She has also started her own flume. She will say, 'I'm going to my flume.' Me - 'Oh, good, where is your flume?' Elena - 'By the station, on Oudegracht! My Maurtiza is there.' (Mauritza being her version of Maurits the graduate student that I work with.)




So Elena got to come and visit the flume. Getting her own pass was a big hit. Was it like mommy's? She didn't want to share the pass with Poppa. Then all the doors have automatic buttons, got to hit all of those. Finally into the flume. We walked around on the sand and she flung some sand into the 'flume water' because I wouldn't get her get it on her pants. We managed to avoid not wrecking any of my experiments and she seemed pretty impressed (and that's all that matters, right, my daughter thinks that her mom playing in sand is cool).

As we were leaving, we got to meet Maurits in person. Elena was very afraid (he is a tall Dutch guy). But it turns out that the actual reason was very different...at dinner she announced, 'At my flume, my Mauritza is a GIRL.' Ahhhhh, turns out she was pretty shocked that Maurits turned out to be a guy and she thought that only mommas/girls worked at the flume. I won't tell her the little secret that I'm pretty sure I'm the first 'girl' to ever work in the flume. She doesn't need to know that right now.