Since gas is ridiculously expensive, we've been doing the "staycation" thing this summer - sticking close to home and doing local things instead of traveling. Thursday we took Matt to his first ever movie in a real theater: Kung Fu Panda. He did surprisingly well, although he's a little fuzzy on the no-talking rule. Luckily, we were the only people in the theater, so it was fine. Mostly he was happy to have a giant tub of popcorn to snack on. We'll try again in the fall, maybe for Madagascar 2. And we'll go to a different theater - the one here is pretty terrible, about on par with the old Grove in Oak Ridge, although marginally less sticky.
Today we went to the Explorium, a children's museum in Lexington. We totally enjoyed ourselves. I was worried it might be a little old for Matt, but it was great. He dropped marbles down a vortex, sat on a life-size horse model, explored a coal mine, played in a flight simulator, danced on a floor piano, and made giant bubbles with different size wands. (We thought Grandpa would appreciate the scientific reasoning behind the bubble room: "a fun, interactive world of surface tension and fluid dynamics." I mean, really - it's just an excuse to make giant bubbles. C'mon.)
His favorite thing by far was this John Deere Gator - he kept coming back to it from all over the museum.
Playing in the giant mouth:
In the Kids Clinic area:
He put the baby right on the scale, tweaked the sliding weight indicator at the bottom for a minute, and then got a toy hammer and used it to listen to the baby's ears. Cute, but kind of sad - I think this kid's been at the doctor way too much.
First microscope:
Walking on the moon:
Aside from the Gator, his other favorite exhibit was the stream table - 27 feet of running water, complete with workable locks and dams. He loved experimenting with different water levels in the locks and working with the water wheels.
It's quite a good little museum, and a real bargain to boot. The only thing I didn't like was the Sun-Wise Oasis exhibit, which features some kind of fancy light and mirror combo that shows you the amount of real skin damage on your face. Um, yikes. Seriously, yikes. I have been faithfully wearing sunscreen on my face, everyday, since I was about 20, and I still looked like I had a raging case of leprosy. I swear it's enough to make me start wearing a burkha, although I don't know how well that would be received here in London. I'm guessing poorly.
At any rate, despite the trauma of the wretched sun mirror, we had a very good time. I think our next staycation activity may be the zoo, which has a train - Matt should love it. More to come.
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