Children's Museum!

Yesterday, I decided I was too tired to get moving quick enough to get to the zoo by 9am when it's still cool enough to enjoy yourself and see some activity before the heat makes the animals go back to their dens or just lie there. I was also too tired to drive downtown for a 10am storytime at the library. However, I was not too tired to spend the morning watching Sesame Street with Alexandra and then getting down to the Tucson Children's Museum for some leisurely fun. And I am so, so glad we went.

Alexandra, to put it mildly, had an absolute blast. She was into everything, and I have the pictures to prove it. A lot of them are blurry; I forgot my digital camera and was forced to use my cell phone, which has no flash. I am thiiiis close to marching down to the cell phone store and getting a smart phone. I'm fed up.

Anyways, on to the merriment!

The first room we really attacked was called Bodyology, which made sense only due to the five huge body parts on the left wall. A huge ear, set of lungs, a big nose complete with nose hairs and boogers, an enormous heart that would beat and light up when you pushed it, a huge belching, yodeling mouth and a big eye with an eyelid you could move and also different colored panels you could use to change the eye color. Basically the only one that didn't gross me out was the heart. I'm not a booger fan.

But the real gem for Alex was the fruit trees. It had several metal strings of beads, and there were countless pieces of fake rubber fruit with magnets on the tops, so you could hang them up:



I showed her once or twice how to hang the fruits and she got the knack of it really quickly. I was so proud. I've only posted two photos of her doing this but there are like five more on my phone.

Look at those fast fingers fly!

My little doll. <3 Anyways, after several minutes of fruit hanging (and mild freaking out when the other children pulled them off), it was time to go grocery shopping!

In the same room as the trees, but on the opposite wall from the body parts, was a little mock grocery store.

Now, I'm not sure if you can tell, but Alex really, really, really, REALLY enjoyed pushing the cart around and shopping for about 100 cans of fruit cocktail and about 10 bell peppers.

At one point she had so many groceries that they all came tumbling down (like mom like daughter), leaving a path of destruction in her wake. So after we put everything away, it was time to cruise around the rest of the place.



Let's just have a perch on this here chair and see what's going on.

We played with wooden blocks where Alexandra displayed some genetic inheritance from her two architect grandfathers...

And we played with legos where Alexandra proved that legos are freaking awesome...

There was the giant rope maze which she crawled through, needing no directions or encouragement. Girlfriend saw, removed her shoes, and conquered. We hit up the art area in the background, checked out a music room, the ocean room, had a poopy diaper which was exactly when mom realized she ran out of diapers in her bag and when mom realized how absolutely rad the Tucson Children's Museum is for having diapers on hand for just such an occasion.

Anyways, I was so happy that they had spare diapers, because if they didn't, we would have missed out on the super fun rain forest room, reserved for kiddos four and under.



See that thing the mom in the background is leaning over?

It's this big round padded hut thing you accessed by crawling through a couple of tunnels. There were holes to peek out of on the top...



And the sides!



A little boy had been tossing balls in through the little windows, and instead of being upset about having balls thrown at her, she was actually looking for more.

We spent a good two hours at the museum, and if I had only been less of a lazy butt in the morning, we could have spent even more time there, but when we left we were long overdue for her afternoon nap. But we hadn't even hit up the train room, or the science room, and I know Alex could have enjoyed herself more thoroughly in the music room if that poopie diaper hadn't hit. She was so tired, and so happy after a morning at the museum.

I'm more than convinced that we need to buy a membership. For a family of three (and a free child less than two years old), it would be the price of four trips for Alex and me. So that's settled. I could easily go once every two weeks or so, and I know Alexandra would get a kick out of it.

All in all, an absolutely spectacular morning.