Daley Ponderings

Grammy decided that it would be fun to go to the Children's Museum, and boy was she right! This place is so so so so fun.
There's so much stuff to do and explore, for ages infant to 100! Now that Grammy got us introduced, I think Jonathan and I will go often, by ourselves and with friends.

Before we even got our tickets, Jonathan was exploring the colored lights in the floor. Then he wandered into the studio when we went to hang up our coats. It will be a fun place for him in a couple of years. Then there was the life size model of Mister Roger's Neighborhood, with the porch swing, the closet with sweaters and shoes, the fishtank, Picture Picture, the traffic light, a big trolley, a little trolly on tracks and the Neighborhood of Make Believe. Jonathan's favorite was the little trolly because he could press the button to make it move.

He also liked the traffic light because he could press the buttons to turn on the lights. Picture Picture had a few episodes of Mr.Rogers visiting factories, and there was one about how coins are made that I watched when I was a kid! Jonathan also liked sitting in the big trolley, and the puppets in Make Believe.

The three of us spent a long time playing with Smushy Plastic Rod Thing. It was a vertical wall with hundreds of thin rods stuck in the side which you could push back and forth to make 3D designs. If you have seen the pin tables at Imagination at EPCOT, you will have a better idea of what I'm talking about. We started out making imprints of our hands, and writing words. Jonathan was a little weirded out at first, but once he started doing it himself, he liked it better. Then we put our faces into it and that was funny. Jonathan even put his face in it, and his was hilarious!

There was a player piano with plexiglas covers so you could see the inside, and it had xylophones, cymbals and drums in it as well - it played a few Mister Rogers songs. There was a "Kerplunk" which was a conveyor belt with divots in it - you could put wooden balls in the divots, and then when you turned the handle, it dropped the balls onto a xylophone. It was kind of like making your own music box.

Then was the Attic which included boxes with stuff to feel, a shadow room, marionettes and other random stuff. Also there was the Gravity Room which was tilted at a 20 degree angle. It was quite disorienting to be in there because your brain wanted everything to be horizontal. There was a fun fast slide to exit that room.

In the Garage there was a Mini Cooper that Jonathan got to drive, and Grammy filled up the gas tank. A ball machine that the kids could operate - pull the chain to bring the ball to the top and watch it come down the maze. There was a switch/button/light/fan station. In that there was another traffic light, but this time you had to plug in a stereo cable to turn on the light. Jonathan did that just fine and impressed the museum employee.

The traveling exhibit was on music, but it was not as good as it could have been.

Then we went upstairs to the water room. When I told Jonathan that this was the water room, he got all excited and signed "water" over and over again. They had raincoats and boots for the kids, but we decided it would be best just to take off most of Jonathan's clothes instead (and we had read about it online so I brought an extra set of clothes.) He had a great time splashing and getting soaking wet and carrying boats around. He did not like the sprinkler part - he doesn't really like showers. That exhibit could have been better also - if it had smaller rivers and more locks and dams. It was mainly two large pools and there was not that much to do on them.

After drying off and getting clean clothes, we headed to the Nursery, which was better than we had expected. It is a place designed specifically for the infants and toddlers and it had a lot of neat stuff. There was a sand table and a rice table, a giant Lite Brite - though Jonathan had a hard time pushing the rods in, it was a tight fit. There was a set of light objects (packing peanuts, styrofoam balls, tissue paper) that could be blown around when you pressed the buttons.

A small platform had floating circles projected on it and Jonathan climbed up to investigate. When it was time to move on, he stepped off of it all by himself without holding on to anything or anybody! It was about 6 inches high.

There was a push lawnmower and some ramps to push it over. Jonathan had a hard time with that one because first the ramps were steeper than he's had before and secondly, the surface at the top of the ramps was made of plexiglas with objects underneath. He did not want to step on the "hole" and so would fall back down the ramp. Once he was on the "hole" he stepped gingerly, surprised that his feet did not go down in.

There was a seesaw that made bubbles in a wall of water between the two seats. There were other toys and several Brio train tracks. By then it was definitely lunch time and also Jonathan was starting to be ready for his nap.

We had a nice lunch at the cafe which was not too pricey and the food was good. By that time Jonathan had managed to bite off his admission bracelet, which he had been working on the whole time. Then we got our coats and took the bus home. Jonathan fell asleep on the bus. What a fun day!