Exhibiting her skills

Piper and Cadence, our date for the museum

So our Children’s Museum has, essentially, the whole first floor devoted to infants and toddlers.  It has sections for each developmental level- from newborn to exploring toddlers.  It was so so so much fun! 

To make it even better, everyone (including all parents, surprise surprise) is required to take off their own shoes and socks and put on little hospital-like socks (although I knew there was no conceivable way for those socks to stay on Piper’s feet, so I just put them over her sandals, which worked out well).  It was SO nice because you didn’t mind your kids crawling and scooching on the floor this way!  AND we even saw the workers replacing all the stuffed toys that were washed the night before.  This is my kind of activity center.

This is the crawling section of the place.  It had tunnels to crawl through:

…and bumpy bridges to crawl over (Piper did spectacular with this!  A lot better than I anticipated!  It’s a lot of work when your belly drags…):

Although, Piper did think that Cadence’s mode of transportation looked much more efficient; she just couldn’t quite figure out how to do it.

This little bridge had pressure sensors, so anytime you walked over it, it laughed at you.  Piper thought it was very funny, and just sat on it for a good period of time.

Then we went over to the little village.  It had a garden with vegetables that you could pull, so Piper practiced her in-and-out skills.  

I think the best part of the entire exhibit, though, was the abundance of puppets.  We have apparently been neglecting Piper of the fun-ness of these wonders.  She was mesmerized.  And very much in love with the little lamb when it kissed her cheek.  Seriously.  

When we had explored our way out of the little kid area, we went upstairs to find what else there was to do.  The only other place that was little-kid friendly was the train room.  Piper liked to make the trains go on the track a lot more than she liked to wear the hat.  The only way I could get the hat on her was to distract her with a train.  It worked.  For a minute.   

The pretend school was fun, but too big for Piper to do much (literally, she was too short to see much of anything, lol). 

About this time, Piper, who refused her morning nap, was beginning to get tired.  We played in the foam shape room for a few minutes, but it didn’t last too long.

This, my friends, is the nose-dive that ended our day.  After this, there was too much sadness in the world to continue the day.

…and after 2.3 seconds in the car, this was my child.  Glorious.  Simply glorious. 

So, if anyone wants a playdate-mate at the museum, make sure to let us know!  And if you’re planning on going, I highly recommend the 9-11 am period- after that it got busy, and most of the kids moved a lot faster than Piper, so once more kids came around, she didn’t get to utilize it all as much.