We met Lilah's friend Mya there, along with her mom and sister. It was fun for me to have a "mom playdate" to talk to and admire the enthusiastic dramatic players in the museum. Mya came up to me at one point and said, "This is the most awesomest place in the world!"
There's a room there that has all this real life experiential stuff that the kids can do, like drive a bus while wearing a bus driver's hat, dress up like a postal carrier and deliver a bunch of fake mail, shop at a grocery store, be a cashier, control traffic, make a music video (sing and dance on screen), dress up like various community workers, and much, much more. The greatest part of the room is watching the determination that each kid exhibits while doing their fake job, and doing it well. My favorite part of "Our Word" is where the kids can work in a kitchen, cooking and cleaning, then also become servers and take your order and bring you different kinds of food. I sat in the restaurant for 30 minutes while my children, as well as other peoples's kids, took my order, brought me food, and checked back with me on numerous occasions to see if the food and service was to my liking. I faked eating bread, yogurt, applesauce, a t-bone steak, juice, more bread, and something that I wasn't exactly sure what it was. I sat in awe watching my children work so hard on their jobs- cooking, sweeping and mopping, cleaning up the mess that they made while preparing food, putting food back in the refrigerator, doing the dishes, etc. I asked Emma when we got home why she doesn't work that hard at home. Her response, "I don't know where the mop is."
My other favorite area of the kids museum is the Machine Warehouse where children move fake packages that look like rocks on a conveyor belt. This section used to drive me crazy because there was always some big kid bossing every other kid around, telling them where to get the packages, when to put them on the conveyor belt, and basically telling everyone what needs to be done. What used to be a pet peeve has now become the highlight of my experience at the museum. I'm fascinated watching the roles that the kids establish in this totally pointless exercise. They get a box, put it on the conveyor belt, turn the crank, and it goes up to the second floor. Then, it goes around a bit and comes back down a shoot and some kid gets told again to put it back on the belt, and it starts all over again. The "factory workers" all stand around the conveyor belt, hoping they'll be lucky enough to touch or move one of the boxes, and maybe someday, they might get to be the boss and tell everyone what to do, or at least turn the crank. Sometimes, the kids get too many packages on the belt, and all their hard work starts to back up and a package jam occurs. The self-appointed foreman/crank turner has to figure out who needs to rearrange the packages so everything flows more easily, so he can go back to turning the crank, and getting those packages to move, move, move on the conveyor belt. Time's a wasting people! Everyone works so hard to accomplish ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, but they do it with such vigor and purpose, I'd give each and every one of those kids a job on the spot if I had one to offer. If only this determination could transfer to cleaning up the toys at home!
The least enjoyable part of the experience is the fact that you are forced to walk by a store that sells all sorts of stuff that kids "really, really, want and are sooooo cute" after spending 3 hours in the Children's Museum. It went almost without a hitch, but that part might be a blog entry itself. And then there's the McDonalds that you have to pass on the way back to the parking ramp. All of this is worth the experience at any rate.
The last thing I have to say about this experience has to do with the face painting. The museum workers bring out the goods about every 3 hours or so. Emma was so looking forward to this, but I wasn't sure if it would be offerred, since we were there in the late afternoon/early evening. When she saw the face painting stand being wheeled out, her face totally lit up. She sat there, after claiming her spot at a mirror, patiently waiting as the table was being set up. She spent at least 10 minutes getting everything just perfect. They all spent the time perfecting their faces. Gavin decided to be Darth Mole from Star Wars, Lilah is a cat, and I'm not sure what Emma's creation is called. Emma was thoroughly disappointed when we had to wash it off before going to bed. She was planning on keeping her face like that until Monday, so she could show here teacher and all her friends in Kindergarten her masterpiece. Luckily, I took a picture, so I told her I'd e-mail it to the teacher.
Oh, and one more thing. When we got to the elevators, the kids had all figured out who would push which button. When we got inside the elevator and the doors started to close, Emma was going to push #5 (our parking ramp level), and Lilah said, "push 5." Emma started to cry because, in her words, "I already knew to push 5 but Lilah told me to push 5 and I wanted to do it without anyone telling me to push #5!" We sat on that elevator, doors closed, waiting for Emma to figure out what to do about this predicament. We waitd for about 30 seconds until she eventually succumbed to the need to push the button and we made it out generally intact and in good spirits.
No comments:
Post a Comment