Mother-Son Afternoon Excursion

I spent a wonderful Saturday afternoon at the children's museum with Vinny. Jeff was feeling a bit under-the-weather, so I took Vinny out for a fun mother-son afternoon.

I hadn't taken him to the museum in a while. In fact, the last time he was there, he wasn't walking yet, so he didn't get as much out of it then as he did yesterday.

We started in the train room, where he could have easily spent the entire afternoon. There are lots of toy trains to play with there, and he was shouting "TRAINS!" with excitement. After at least twenty minutes, I was able to lure him to the next exciting room, the child-sized dollhouse. He enjoyed playing in the kitchen of the dollhouse but didn't try to go upstairs. Unlike the last time we were there, there were no other children in the room so he had the run of it to himself. Then we went to the rainforest room, where he enjoyed running on the boardwalk and opening and closing the doors of the "research station." Another room he really loved was the bird room, where, if you go up on this deck, there are bird's nests under glass on the floor. He really loved pushing the buttons and turning on the recessed lamps in the floor, illuminating the nests. We must have done that approximately 8,423,986 times. But I could tell he really enjoyed it so that made it worth it.

It is readily apparent to me that Vinny loves two things above all else: wheels and lights. The wheels on the train toys were what made them so awesome. In another exhibit, there was an old-timey wheelchair and he studiously examined and tried out the wheels on the wheelchair. And I tried to get him to look at the plants and animals in the rainforest room, but he was more interested in checking out the lighting system. I taught him the word "nest" from the aforementioned bird room, but it's entirely possible that he thinks it means recessed lighting.

Altogether we spent about four hours at the museum. We took one short break to eat some goldfish crackers and drink some milk, but otherwise, the whole time was spent in the museum. He really had a great time and I'll have to take him back there again very soon.