Our Trip to The Children's Museum

Yesterday Carter and I went to the Children's Museum.  They had done some changing and updating since our last visit in March.  I was disappointed to see they had revamped the toddler area and no longer had some of the toys.  During our first visit we had seen some older children come into the toddler area even though a sign was displayed saying it was for children 3 years of age or younger.  The only reason why I can think they would have gotten rid of toys would be so older children wouldn't be tempted to go in the area.  I was most excited about taking Carter in the tape tunnels, but I was almost as excited about him getting to flip light switches that turned on different colored lights.  Unfortunately the light switches were taken out during the time between our visits and I was bummed about that.

Carter amazed me in the tape tunnels.  The first time through he held my hand on a few parts, but not many, and wanted to hold my hand for help down and then back up some steps.  The next time we went through he walked all by himself, slid down the step and pulled himself up and over the next step.  In March he had struggled even crawling through and would walk when holding someone's hand.  It was amazing to see him walk through the tunnels with such ease.  The tunnels end with a big tape slide.  Carter loved it and attempted to go down on his tummy a couple of times, but had a hard time so he switched back to his bottom.  He had such a blast and wanted to do it over and over.  He would come down the slide and immediately turn around to go back up, so I would direct him back to the entrance.  After a few times he figured it out and would step off the slide running back toward the entrance.  We went through the tunnel so many times my neck started getting sore from bending down to walk through.

Waiting on me to go through the next part of the tunnel.

The first video is Carter rocking the tape tunnels and the second video is him going down the tape slide at the end.

One room at the museum (the one with the tape tunnels) has all kinds of neat movement-related ways to play.  The other room is educational with hands-on projects.  Last time we went the projects were related to science and electricity.  This time the projects were related to homes and community.  When we first walked in there was an archway which Carter ducked through.  He had plenty of clearance and didn't need to duck, that made me laugh!  There were hard hats to put on and blocks all over the place.  The blocks were there to build walls for existing clear plastic structures.  There was a dog house with blocks to build the walls and different blocks to build the roof.  There was a house with blocks to build the walls and the chimney.  They had a pulley system where you could put blocks in a basket to take up and build a roof.  Carter was intrigued watching the kids use it and even helped put blocks in the basket.  The house was really cool because you could paint the walls with a roller and there were lights that would make the walls change color.  That was by far Carter's favorite.  You could hang curtains by using strips of cloth with velcro.  You could also lay grass to make a garden and create foam flowers.  Carter found a wheel barrow and drove it around quite a bit.  It took him a while to figure out how to drive it.  He wanted to point the handles straight up in the air and that wasn't working out for him.  I showed him how to do it a few times and then he caught on.  Of course when I tried to take a video he quickly decided he wanted to do something else, so I ended up with a short clip.

Working hard to paint the wall.

We stayed at the museum for a little over 2 hours and definitely could have stayed longer, but Carter was getting hungry and tired.  Harper barked and woke him up early from his nap plus he walked up and down the tubes in the tape tunnels to exhaustion.  I decided it was time to leave when Carter threw himself down and cried because I wouldn't let him grab this little girl's My Little Pony stuffed animal she brought with her.  We marched right on out of there when that happened.  I had forgotten they have a playground and a splash park right in front of the museum so I let Carter play on the playground for a little bit.  He started to venture toward the splash pad, but the tubes can be moved and a kid moved one so it was spraying Carter, so he high tailed it out of there.  Next time we visit the Children's Museum I'm going to pack a beach bag so we can play at the splash pad when we leave.