Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Children's Museum Day

We spent all day getting to, enjoying, and coming home from the children's museum! We were out the door by 8:50 this morning to meet a neighborhood moms group friend at the train station. I had not truly met her before today, but I say "friend" because I am pretty close to a few of her mom friends and they often mention her. I'll call her M in this post in case she doesn't feel like being talked about in a blog post.

Because I made a wrong turn on the way to the station, she kindly waited for us outside a Kohl's and drove in front of us to the station. We got all the kids out of our cars and starting slowly walking toward the station; then M had a thought that maybe she hadn't locked or closed her car doors. I can relate. She went back to double-check, then we walked up to the ticket kiosk and had to wait behind one other person to get our tickets. We bought our day pass tickets for the train, and then...the train took off. We missed it. If I hadn't made a wrong turn, we would have made it. If she hadn't double checked her car, we would have made it. If we had walked very briskly up to the station, we would have made it.

She and her children hung out with us for a while. They were having a blast running around the pretty station with some other kids, finding roly polys, playing in and wearing dirt (Nick), and playing "run away from the Tyrannosaurus" (Nick, of course). Because of her one-year-old's nap schedule, she had to skip the train business and drive on to the museum. They got there about an hour before we did, but it was fine. We waited for the train with another two women and their children who had missed the previous three trains! They helped me out because I didn't know where I was going once we got off the train downtown. It was a pleasure to meet them; they were such nice people and kind of went out of their way to be friendly to me. One of their children, a four-year-old boy, got on swimmingly with Xander.

My boys did well on the train. The walk from the downtown station to the children's museum was 0.4 miles, aka 35 minutes on foot with my sloooooooooowwwwwwww children. Everyone passed us on the sidewalk. A mother pushing a preschooler in a stroller and carrying a baby on her chest passed us. But the boys were having a great time. Xander kept turning to people and saying, "Look! We're in the city!" We certainly seemed like country mice.

We met up with M and her two children right away at the museum. It was not a huge place, but had lots of little play spaces and activities packed in. It was jam packed and therefore a little bewildering and distressing, because Xander wanted to run off to things like a great big two-story slide ahead of us, while Nick wanted to go somewhere else, and M and her baby needed to be yet another place. A little worrisome. If no one had been there, it would have been an awesome space to explore with the kids. They did have a great time there. We spent time at the play fishing pond, large slide, pretend diner, train set-up, hang-like-a-bat area, baby/toddler space which was quite incredible, and the "geometry" exhibit filled with tinker toy type blocks and wheels, gears, and more. That was our last stop as Nick was reaching his last moments of patience (he was starving and tired). Unfortunately, they only got a minute or two in that room, which could have been their favorite if we had found it sooner.

Then we had frozen yogurt together next door. M's little girl (5 years old) and Xander really hit it off. We are getting them together at the playground tomorrow morning. Nick and the baby bopped around to the fro yo place's music. We trudged back to the train station. Both boys were "dying" from lack of water (we had just run out of water on the walk to the station). Xander tried to pull a croaky, dying voice on me, and after explaining when we would be able to get more water, I said something along the lines of, "Oh, well, make it work." He is no stoic. But both boys were lovely on the train home, considering.

Oh, and I had not been looking forward to our drive home because our car is now making an airplane-like noise. I will not be driving that again if I can help it. Erik and I are car-shopping on Friday.

We are safe home, we are well watered and fed, Nick fell asleep on the couch, and all is well. Erik and I get to go out for our anniversary tonight because our friend Jenny volunteered to watch the kids!

Nick on the train, trying to come around and see what I'm taking a picture of

at the museum, taking a snack break

Xander and friend hanging upside down like bats
captivated by the fish, of course

yes, here is the captivation

Xander's quick creation in the "geometry" room

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