Good to Great

Liam and I had this totally amazing day together at a local museum. I had purchased the tickets via Groupon a few months ago and they expire on December 19. As luck would have it the museum was closed on Monday when we planned to go and today was the only other day we could go between now and then. Oy!

We missed an open gym class at his gymnastics place and he's been begging to go since Monday. But, a mom has to make choices and we had paid for these tickets--so it was an easy call to make in the end.

It all started out when we found EIGHT dollars worth of nickels and dimes in my car change holder and I let him feed each of the seemingly endless supply into the meter. (I love this part of parenting. The part where kids can find the fun in these seemingly mundane tasks. It inspires me to look for the fun in my life.)

Then we were off--the very beginning part of the museum where Liam had to take off his coat and put on an arm band were much like the opening scene of an epic tragedy (tears, screaming, acrobatic style thrashing of one tiny little body). However, the promise of a soccer ball and that he could put the key for the locker where we had stored our stuff in his pocket eventually won him over. Whew!

From there we spent 3 hours going to each and every part of the museum. Last year the "Water Works" area was a big hit, not so much this year. I love that it will probably continue to change as he gets older and we continue to visit. I look forward to seeing what his preferences will be in a year, in five.

I was able to see a big change in what he could do and in his attention span in just the last 8 months since our last visit. It was also really interesting to see what he re-told to Tim--what parts stayed with him, what he learned.

The best thing was that they had a travelling Bob the Builder exhibit and Liam is not big on life size characters, so I didn't make any special effort to be at the exhibit when "Bob" showed up. However, as Bob was walking around upstairs we happened to see him from the lower level and tried to "make his attention". We waved and hollered "Hello!" to no avail and Bob began making his way off around the top level, I assume to go back and change when Liam exclaimed, "Mamma, we gotta run up 'da stairs to see him!!!". What?? Ohmygosh...my kid...run...to meet a character??!! Let me tell you I flew up those stairs and stopped just short of the top to gauge his reaction and he was all smiles and giggles and waves and squeals of delight. I asked if he wanted to give Bob a High-5? "No." but not "Nooooo!!!!!". Holy smokes, this was progress and then I climbed the remaining stairs slowly and he just smiled and waved and giggled and It. Was. Awesome. I mentioned that Bob probably needed to get lunch and we headed back down the stairs and Liam just looked at me...starstruck! I had helped him meet an idol, and he wasn't going to forget it. He turned on the I-love-you-so-much-I'll-just-be ridiculously-awesome-the-rest-of-the-day button.

Today was a day I'm going to rememeber sharing with him for a long time to come.

PS-That photo is of a sign at the museum. Can we just all agree that is the best sign at a Children's museum ever??