Natural Science Museum
My wife wanted to bring the whole family to the natural science museum one day. I don’t know what got into her since most days, we are just trying to get through it without things falling completely apart. It’s also hard to get out of the house since our 1 year old son L needs his nap in the middle of the day.
Our 7 year old daughter E and 5 year old son C were excited to go. We all left after breakfast and got to the museum almost right when it opened. Thank goodness parking was available (even though we had to pay for it) and the goal was to get in and out without any tantrums.
We went in and walked all around to explore things about the human body, physics, and space. It was really interesting and all the kids had fun in those areas. We then went to the nature area, which was really cool to see. There were all kinds of dissected bugs to look at and L was particularly interested, but a bit scared. We then went to the butterfly section and they were fluttering all over. It was a magical experience since there were so many active butterflies. Even though I’ve been to a few different ones, this one was the best I’ve seen. The kids loved it. Last was a spider section and it was my wife’s big fear.
Before going into the spider section, E and C wanted a snack, so we ended up getting a bottle of water and a bag of chips to share. It was $11 and I couldn’t believe the price. It made me frustrated on the inside because I don’t like seeing price gouging even though we could afford it. It’s hard to think about how other families make it all work and I had to keep telling myself that it was for a good cause (to allow the museum to operate).
When we all went in, it was awesome to see. There were so many different spiders in each enclosure. There were also interactive sections where you could move and dance like a spider to catch food to eat. L had a lot of fun chasing the virtual spiders on the ground. He kept wanted to smash them (it was something my wife told him if he got scared…and its so cute even though I wouldn’t want him to actually kill spiders). We then saw spiders you could color and input into a projector so the virtual version of the spider could crawl on the wall. C made tons of his version and laughed about it.
When it was time to go, we ended up dashing to the car. It was a relatively calm trip and the kids had so much fun. We even made it back home before L had to nap. Honestly, I couldn’t believe how smooth the trip had been (except for the $11 bottle of water and a bag of chips). It was a memorable morning and one that hopefully sparks more interest in science because science is awesome!
