Daddy Day again. Caleb and I took the morning easy (I have a bit of a cold and he seemed content to romp around the house) but decided to check out the Boston Children’s Museum for the afternoon. A number of people have told us that Caleb is the perfect age for a visit and would have a blast, so we figured that today was as good a day as any to see if they were right. (Click on the photo to the right to check out a few images from our trip.)
We did some research online to figure out how to get there and whether a family pass or a daily ticket made sense. I was struck by how few photos there were of the exhibits and play areas — I guess I figured that if was anything like the Portland (Maine) Children’s Museum (which is awesome), there would be all of these really cool and fun things to take photos of kids clowning around on. Evidently, I think I found out later why the photos are so sparse…

My office is more or less in the path from our house to the museum, so we began our trip with a quick pit stop to check a few work details and nab some water. My boss grabbed Caleb a little cup of water, which he eagerly drank, and Caleb received some nice comments about his cool dragon shirt.

When we finally arrived at the museum, I decided it would be a good idea to grab some lunch. Caleb is a happy camper on a full stomach — not so much when he’s hungry. Our choices were an Au Bon Pain or a bagel shop. I regret the choice now, but we opted for the bagel shop.

I am not the biggest stickler about Caleb’s diet when we are out and about, but I guess I have a problem with the standard menu items that so regularly populate the Children’s Menu. Pizza, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, more pizza, hamburgers, some Crisco (deep fried in some more Crisco, of course), ice cream, soda, even more pizza, deep fried pizza, deep fried pizza with cheese-infused crust (the infused cheese is deep fried first), etc.

Not that Caleb jumps up and down for whole wheat bread, sprouts, a nice cut of salmon and some turnips, but I don’t think it would kill restaurants to have at least one semi-healthful option every once in a while. That said, I imagine menu choices are market-driven and perhaps I should be railing on about parents and how they demand greasy food for their kids. Especially ones that moan about food options on a blog but still order a grilled cheese for their son from the same greasy menu (I could have sworn that I heard something about a side of veggies)…

The grilled cheese turned out to be a whole bagel split down the middle, with both halves facing up and covered in melted cheese. I must say, it looked pretty tasty, but quite a bit too much cheese and bread for a two year old. I chuckled to myself and let him eat it, contentedly wolfing down my own sandwich, which turned out to be SALAD DRESSING! with a side of bagel and some vegetables, and vowing to figure out how to deal with the food/travel conundrum.

Loaded up and ready for some romping, we got a credit card out and prepared to buy some tickets. There’s a $6 difference between a one-year old and a two-year old (Caleb turns 2 in the first week of August) and the museum employee looked at me with the least subtle I don’t believe you for a second shady ticket-price skirting man face I have seen in a while. Caleb didn’t help the situation by talking to her and running around like a champ, but she graciously granted me the one-year-old rate in the end.

I was expecting chaos, but the museum was relatively empty. It was almost 4pm, and I think the mobs were waiting for 5pm to roll around. Apparently Target sponsors a $1 Friday where a whole family can enter on Friday’s after 5pm. Shucks.

The bottom floor has a bunch of play-area climbing and romping sections, and Caleb ran around trying to play with everything at once. He scrambled up a climbing wall, walked on a balance beam, played on a bicycle, and discovered the basketball room.

The kids in the basketball room were all quite a bit older and managed to score baskets every once in a while. Caleb was desperately trying to hurl the ball into one of the four baskets but kept missing, or coming up through the bottom net-first. Nevertheless, the true competitor that he is, Caleb decided to show those seven year olds what was up by booting a few of their basketballs, one of which flew out the door and nearly took out a few parents, around the room for a minute.

Sweet.

(I was secretly beaming about how awesome his kicking ability is…even when I was scrambling around outside to grab and return the cannonball he had just knocked out of the park.)

And that was about it. If you have been to the Boston Children’s Museum before you probably know that the “exhibits” I describe above comprise about 1/30th of the museum. To be blunt, the rest of the museum was a bit of a let down. While there were a lot of exhibits and things to play with, it seemed so sparse, and there was not nearly the level of learning and intellectual stimulation I had expected. I am, of course, comparing the museum to other children’s museums I have been to, and it is quite hard to top the Portland museum (noted above) or the Exploratorium in San Francisco (I know, I know — the latter is not a children’s museum, per se, but I can guarantee you that Caleb would have had more fun there than at the Boston Children’s Museum).

Regardless of my grumblings, we still had a great time. I suppose the lesson there is that you don’t need food that is easily digestible, or a museum that somehow manages to teach your child Latin whilst playing on a jungle gym, to have a great time. We had a blast just walking to the museum!