Children's Museum

Yesterday, Ashley & I took the kids to the Children's Museum. It was the perfect day to go since it rained in some form all day long! Jackson was finally old enough to really play in the Kidtropolis area. This is a small city inside the museum with banks, diners, a grocery store, a veternary clinic, an ambulance and a police car. The kids can work, shop, eat, etc at all of the places and if they work, they get a "paycheck" afterwards that they can take to the bank or ATM and deposit. When they shop, they use their credit card to pay for their food or groceries, etc. Jackson liked looking at the ambulance, but didn't want to put on the scrubs or use the defibrilator or anything, so we moved on to the veternary clinic. He weighed & examined a stuffed bunny and a cat, then got his $20 paycheck and went to the grocery store.

At the store, we got a basket and he went shopping. He wasn't having any part of the apron at checkout, but he did find the banana, grapefruit and fish on the touchscreen cash register before we heard Emme erupt in tears. She was waiting out front with Ashley and apparently did not find it amusing that the fruit in the bins wasn't real!

Then we went to the Tot Spot and there both kids were free to roam, climb, and imagine to their hearts' content! Emme was definitely in her element with all the climbing! Jackson got to exert lots of energy and play with kids his age. That helped him not be so rough with Emme later in the day!

When Emme showed signs of being sleepy, we loaded her up in the stroller and went to the Water Works area. Jackson immediately wanted a boat to play with in the HUGE water tables. I also taught him about dams. There was this one area where you could dam up the water and then turn a wheel and the water would come rushing out. He liked this area most of all, I think!

Last, we went to the Vietnam area. This teaches about Vietnamese culture. There were musical instruments, dragon & paper lantern decor, fishing boats where you could haul in a load of fish in a net, along with historical facts on the walls. It was pretty cool - Jackson is really into dragons & dinosaurs right now, so he liked it. He didn't want to get up near the dragon's head, but was happy to pet the body! He tried eating the fish, shrimp, and coconuts on the fishing boat. Ewww! Everybody and their dog has prolly had their mouth on those. Ick and double ick!

Please ignore the talking-while-smiling fake smile on my face!

As we were leaving, Jackson saw this train and HAD to have his picture next to it!

After that, we called it a day and went to grab real lunch! Mason Jar - yummmm! Thanks, Ashley for braving Hurricane Alex's effects with us! We had fun! Sad I didn't get many pics with you in them! Next time....