Hot-Flashed Funk: We're All Kids Here

Monday, August 29, 2011

We're All Kids Here

We went with Sweet Pea and her brother to the Children's Museum of Houston today. It was a delightful afternoon, let me tell you. Since Mika is not even two yet, we spent almost all of our time on the second floor in the toddlers' section where we had a blast. But before we made it to that floor, we saw these old "banana seat" bicycles that were bolted to the floor. Mika didn't want to get on one by herself but she would do it if her Nana got on it first so I crawled onboard (it's been awhile since I've been on one of these), and we pretended to ride like the wind.

Everything was sized for toddlers upstairs so we all took off our shoes and joined the other parents and grandparents in this delightful area where the children could freely explore without fear of hurting themselves. Mika's first stop was a little house with a drum inside and a teapot. I'm not sure how the two were connected but in the world of imagination, anything goes.

I could go up and down stairs forever.

Then she headed over to a structure that had places to climb up, slide down, or step down. She hasn't quite figured out that you should probably not climb up something upright....that it is better to go at it on hands and knees. But then, she hasn't been around many things to climb in her short life. Next time she is at Nana and PawPaw's, we'll give her some lessons on the stairs. I think she'll be old enough by then to be able to handle them. She sure had fun going up and down these steps with Aunt Andrea to help, when she'd accept a helping hand.


Beep, beep...Out of the way!

The next thing that caught her attention was a red truck. She loved sitting in it and hitting the horn. It had two steering wheels and two pedals that made sounds if you pressed them.

Hmm, let's try some double acceleration.

She didn't bother much with steering. She was more enthralled with the pedals and the buttons to push. I hope her fascination with the gas pedals doesn't mean she's going to have a lead foot when she actually starts driving.


Don't look now but you've picked up a passenger.

When we finally lured her away from the truck we got her over to the other half of the toddlers' area. They had the cutest little set-up with two doors.

Each door had a light switch which turned on a light over the door, a door bell, a door knocker on the door, a door chain lock, and a door knob to grasp to open the door.

When you opened the door, you came face-to-face with yourself because there was a full-length mirror in the door frame. This just tickled Mika for some reason.

It's YOU again!

In fact, it tickled her so much that she kept going back to the doors again and again. It was one of her favorite things to play with in the toddler area.

The doors were winning out until Mika spotted the plastic balls and the puzzle thingie on the wall with the flippers and holes cut out to put things in. There were two shallow ringed play areas nearby filled with plastic balls and Mika started carrying the balls over to the puzzle where she pushed them into the holes and watched them drop down to the bottom. This went on for quite a spell especially since I'd grab some balls from the bottom of the puzzle and walk them back to the play rings when she wasn't looking. I mean, I didn't want to leave the poor babies that were sitting in those rings high and dry, without any balls to play with.

I KNOW there's an easier way to carry those balls.

This went on for quite a while until Mika suddenly headed off to another area where she upended a basket that was holding some toys and then came back to us carrying her new basket which she was going to use to carry the balls back and forth. Smart kid!

Mika's daddy finally lured her away from the balls with a stuffed toy and a trip to a set of swivel-blocks.

Nana, what shall I do next?

The final area to explore was the puzzle room which had some neat puzzles and some leggo-style blocks to play with.

And what did little brother, Luke do during our visit to the museum? Why, sleep and eat, of course.

One funny thing that happened on our way out of the museum...They have a section filled with shops where children can dress up and pretend to be working in these shops, like a veterinary clinic, a car repair shop, and a grocery store. Laura had taken Mika into the grocery store shop while I was looking in the gift shop and one of the things they had in the pretend grocery shop was plastic food items for the children to put in their baskets. When Laura turned around, she saw Mika had an ear of corn and was gnawing at it. She REALLY likes sweet corn and apparently she didn't realize it wasn't real. Awww!