I must say this is one of the best areas to raise kids. There is just so much to do and now that
Alison is a little older, we are finally able to take advantage of many of
those things. I guess it has been a
couple of weeks ago now, but Gail and I took the kids for a fun day at the Children’s
Museum. Alison had a blast. She is really starting to come out of her
shell. I’m sure she had to think about
it though, because on the one hand there were a lot of people and children
there and she could have easily shied away from everything and just clung to me. But on the other hand there were so many
cool things to do, she must have thought that a little interaction was worth
it.
First we hit the World Works Gallery, where she was able to
experiment with various light and shadow activities, then it was quickly onto
the water area (much more fun). Here
she and Jack are playing with some water tubes – you sent balls down tubes to
see where they would come out. She also
liked racing boats down a little water ramp, where you had to control the speed
of the boat by sending water down – she figured it out fairly quickly.
Her favorite area by far was the Our World Gallery. It was like a little city that was just her
size. There was a city bus, a daycare
center, a post office, a dress up area, a medical center, a house with a dog
house and clothes line in the front yard, there were cross walks and roads, a restaurant,
a grocery store and a recoding studio. She especially enjoyed the restaurant and the recording studio. At first she wanted nothing to do with the
music area because there were a ton of kids and it was kind of noisy. But later when it was just her and Jack, she
checked it out. As more kids joined she
didn’t seem to care because she was having too much fun. Basically kids could choose a song and go
onto the stage and pretend to sing into microphones, play instruments and
dance, while watching themselves on a TV screen that supplied a background to
go along with the music. It was pretty
cool. The picture below shows Ali on
stage dancing with other kids. I
couldn’t believe she actually did this. When it was time to leave, I had to double check to make sure I had the
right kid.
After the little city area, we decided to go into the
Curious George Gallery, before leaving for lunch. While there she got to play mini golf, play with some color
shapes on an overhead projector and play in a little space ship slide. There was also this statue of George himself
and I know this picture looks totally staged, but Alison did it herself. She climbed right up beside him and gave him
a big hug. She loved him.
It was a great day and Alison didn’t want to leave. As we walked to the car, she kept saying “museum,
museum”. It is definitely a place we
will have to visit again soon – next time with Daddy.