Acton Discovery Museum

Wow. I think that sums up my morning pretty accurately.

We (three of us--me, Celia, and Andres) just got back from the Acton Children's Discovery Museum, a place that I have heard a lot about and have wanted to visit for a while. I remember visiting the Science Discovery Museum way back when I was a kid, but until today I don't think I had ever been inside the companion Children's museum that sits next door.

Wow.

It's worth noting first that the museum is fantastic. Lots of hands-on/minds-on activities, kids can touch everything, and every room has a different theme. The staff clearly cares a lot about kids and learning and they maintain a great place to spend a morning or afternoon. (I would definitely go here again at least a couple more times before venturing into Boston for either the Children's Museum or the Science Museum.) The museum is a converted Victorian house, so the rooms are small and it has a much different feel from other museums I have been to.

Having praised the museum and its staff, I will now say that it was an exhausting 2 hours. I'm tempted to describe the visit as "complete sensory overload," but I don't think that's true--rather, I think it's just exhausting to take care of your own toddler while you wonder what the 51 other toddlers running around your own toddler are going to do. And how your own toddler will interact/share/deal with them. Not to mention the 51 other caretakers for those toddlers--as a parent, I feel like I am constantly being evaluated on my ability to handle my child in social settings. (This is probably not true at all; I'm sure nobody really cares. But I definitely stick out in the middle of a bunch of women aged 29-49, and I do worry about how I would deal with a complete toddler meltdown in the middle of museum chaos.)

Anyway--Andres had a great time. (Celia slept for the first 20 min or so in her carseat, then she ate, and then she experienced the museum strapped to my chest in the Bjorn.) We walked into the museum's first room to see--yup, you guessed it--trains and train tracks just like Andres has here at the house. I was hoping not to see any of these, as these tracks immediately got his attention and he wanted to play with them. The larger issue is that he is starting to assume that all Brio tracks and trains are "his" since he plays with them every day at home; this leads to a number of sharing-related issues when he uses the trains at the library, or a random store, or here at the museum. And sure enough there were a couple of small incidents where he grabbed another child's train and didn't want to give it back (he was building "a big train" he said) but overall we avoided any disasters or scoldings from other parents.

Leaving the train room behind, we ventured into the next room which featured a lot of balls and tracks. He seemed to have a good time playing with these:



Then it was off to the water room (I'm proud to report that 99% of the water he touched stayed in the appropriate place):



Upstairs had a lot of fun activities too. He bounced from the color room to the safari/animal room, and then we ventured up another flight of stairs to the boat room. We stayed there for a bit before heading back down and finding the kitchen. I thought the kitchen was a great place--it had a few diner-type tables, a galley-type kitchen, and tons and tons of play food. Given how much Andres likes to help in the kitchen at home, I figured he would have fun here--and he did. Here he is making a meal:



And here we are sharing a nice brunch.



Then, mercifully, it was time to go. We stopped quickly to play with the trains again on the way out, grabbed our jackets and headed to the car.

At this point a Great Parenting Moment occurred. To get Andres to leave, I asked him if he wanted to go home and get some pizza. He loved this idea and then ran through the parking lot to get to our car. This did not amuse me, and I expressed my displeasure by rescinding the offer of pizza for lunch...needless to say this was not taken well, so my reward was 30 minutes of screaming and crying on the ride home. Hooray me. Way to cap off a fun morning.

So overall I think it was a good couple of hours. As always, Celia was fantastic--just hanging out, watching everything around her, collecting compliments. And despite the end-of-trip meltdown Andres had a great time too. He shared pretty well with other kids, didn't cling to me, and seemed interested in what he was doing.

Now if we could just get rid of those trains...