Well, we’re back home now and the last ten days have been a whirlwind of trips to Toronto, doctor appointments, playgroups, babysitting, and the like. I am finally getting a chance to sit down and finish this post.
The third big trip we took while visiting my parents was to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. It was not my children’s first time experiencing fossils, gems, and taxidermy animals, but really, these things never get too old. Especially when you’re a museum junkie like me.
Our trip began with a super exciting Metro ride from my parents’ house to the National Mall. Obviously, it was much more exciting for the little guys than it was for the adults- all of whom have frequently ridden the trains before.
Like all boys, mine love trains. They love to play with their wooden toy trains and they love to ride trains. They really love to go through the tunnels, and as anyone who rides the Metro knows, there were lots of tunnels for my children to appreciate.
After arriving at the Smithsonian stop, we made our way- manoeuvring and carrying Sweet Pea in the stroller- up the escalators and emerged into the glorious heat and humidity of Washington DC in mid-August. We walked across the Mall and stopped to take the prerequisite pictures in front of both the Washington Monument (see above) and the capitol building- which was under construction. If you look really carefully to the left of the dome in this picture you can see the giant crane that was parked next to the capital. The boys thought the crane was a lot cooler than the capitol building.
After arriving at the museum and taking a potty/snack break, Bud quickly decided that we needed to visit the Ocean Hall section first. I think the giant globe hanging from the ceiling had something to do with his decision. So did this guy:
Yeah, that’s a giant whale hanging from the ceiling right in the middle of the exhibit. My children were very impressed.
We made our way through the Hall, watching the available videos and admiring all the animals- Bud became suddenly fascinated with sea cucumbers for some reason and we searched high and low until we finally found a preserved one for him to admire. He really likes to eat garden cucumbers, so I guess he felt like he should admire the ocean variety.
Next was the Discovery Room- my favorite part. Anything my kids can explore and learn from gets an A+ in my book, and this particular room was exceptional in the quantity of specimens the kids could get their hands on.
There were dozens of boxes like this one labelled “Butterflies” that Monkey and I are examining. Each box contained several smaller boxes containing skeletons, preserved animals and insects, and other similar items that had to do with the subject of each box.
The walls of the room were covered with a spattering of examples of habitats and stuffed wildlife with binoculars hanging from the wall to admire them and attempt a closer look. There were microscopes and slides, magnifying glasses, African instruments to try out, books to look up information in, a section to make crafts pertaining to some of the exhibits, and a lot more.
It was glorious.
Bud loved the binoculars, but the thing that he really became interested in were the microscopes. It was his first experience getting his hands on one and seeing that tiny world enlarged, and I think he is as attached them them as his mother. During a later trip to a teacher supply store to get a few school supplies, he tried like crazy to convince both me and my mom to buy him a microscope. We did give in and get him a small handheld one, which he has since used to examine everything he can get his hands on. The biologist in me couldn’t be prouder.
The afternoon was filled with fossils of prehistoric animals- including Monkey’s favorite dinosaurs. While we were there he kept darting back into the room with the t-rex, triceratops, and other dinosaurs to see them again.
We couldn’t bypass the exhibit on volcanoes, meteorites, caves, the weather, and other earth and space related things- Bud would have thrown a fit if we had tried!
We did get to touch a piece of Mars- that was really interesting and not something I was expecting. I don’t know if we actually touched it- I think it was under a piece of very thin glass- and it was about the size of the eraser on the back of a pencil. Maybe smaller. Still, I didn’t know that the Smithsonian had a piece of Mars.
We saw the Hope diamond and the rest of the gems and minerals exhibit- definitely interesting but definitely lost on my boys. Plus I guess they don’t air condition that room and it was miserable and crowded. Oh well. The Hope Diamond was very interesting and I learned a lot about it’s history that I hadn’t known before.
The last exhibit we saw were the mammals. I have never seen so many animals stuffed and put in one place. They were arranged to look like they were in their natural habitats- there were several clustered around a fake waterhole. There was one obviously dead species of deer hanging over a tree branch that you walked under while a variety of stuffed large cat prepared to dine on it. There was a beaver in it’s dam, a polar bear on some ice, a rabbit in mid hop, and- Monkey’s favorite- a giraffe sticking out it’s long, bluish tongue to eat leaves off a branch.
So after a long day and another Metro home we finished our planned daytrips around DC. We spend the rest of the trip hanging out with my parents and doing a little shopping. We really had a great time. The boys already talk about how much they miss Oma and Pa and ask to watch a slide show of the pictures from our trip so they can talk about all the things we did.
Now it’s time to get ready to start our new school year next week! I can’t believe the summer went by that fast.


