The San Diego Children's Museum

A few weeks ago my parents came to visit us since we wouldn't have a chance to see them before moving to Israel. While they were here we went to a new museum that gave me some real insight into our American culture and my role as a father. We went to the San Diego "New Children's Museum" that opened a few months ago. This is an interactive art and play museum downtown, and as my mom and Maria put it, it is more of a "children's creative experience museum". You can read about and see pictures of exhibits below. First, however I want to point out a few interesting observations:
1) there was an oddly high percentage of non-Americans there (much more so than Sea World, for example)
2) almost all of the exhibits required creativity on the part of the child
3) the children who seemed enjoy the museum the most tended to have either friends/siblings there and/or very interactive parents who didn't mind playing around.

As I played there with Anabelle, Maria, my parents, and Thomas and Tori (my nephew and niece), I was intrigued by the responses of other adults, including those I read prior to coming to the museum...

When we were thinking of going, my brother looked up reviews of the museum. He was wondering why there were some reviews raving as to how cool the museum was, while there were some very critical reviews that complained about various aspects of the museum, including how some parts of the museum seemed home-made (tape pathways on the floor, home-made cars for racing, etc.)

When it came down to it, we decided that in a way reflects the lifestyle and expectations of many families here in southern California. Our society has become very entertain-me oriented. Movies, television, computer games, and theme parks all entertain us. It is not as common, especially for us as adults, to have to entertain ourselves with our own creativity and imagination... in fact, because of our expectations for others to entertain us, I think many of us have stifled imaginations.

Anyway, enough for my soapbox... it's made me realize that I really want to encourage my daughter's imagination. Most of the activities in the museum are projects that a parent could easily do at home with their children, and thus, I want to start doing some of these things during the hour or two in which I'm up with Anabelle before Maria gets up, or in the evening before Anabelle goes to bed. That means I have to discipline myself to decrease the instances in which I plop her down in front of the tv in the morning so that I can work.

Anyway, here are some pics from the museum:
They have a big bubble area in which kids can make many sizes of bubbles with a number of different items (normal plastic bubble makers, pipe cleaners, etc.)
There's also an area where kids can race cars made there down a track... I got all the kids to collaborate a few times to line up all of the cars and push them down the track at the same time.
There is a cool climbing area... though Anabelle enjoyed climbing a little, I think Thomas had the most fun.
There's a pillow-fight room in which the entire floor and all the walls are mattresses, and there are TONS of tire-shaped pillows. I started stacking the tire-pillows onto Thomas until he was covered and then pushing him over. Then Tori wanted me to do it....
Then they did it to me... I realized I'm getting old when I hurt my back when I fell over...
Anabelle, however, wasn't too keen about having more than one tire stacked on her.
A mattress as a slide...
Thomas got buried...

Anabelle loved the area in which they had a bunch of capes and an area in which they could act out stories, walk down blue tape-roads, etc.
There was a forest area with trees in which one could climb into, bouncy mushrooms to sit upon, and ponds in which you pull up pillows and find fish underneath...
Tori laying on a pond...

What better way to end a morning than painting an old VW bug... I was panicking, though, since she was wearing my favorite dress... errr... not MY dress.. but her dress that I like the most... um... not for me to wear, but that she wears... there I've cleared up potentially embarrassing rumors.