The Magic of Museums

On Monday I took the kids on an adventure.  We drove to Dallas and went to the Perot Museum.  I absolutely love taking my children to museums and this day was no different.  We all are on equal footing at a museum; all learning something new.  We carry a sense of wonder with us all day long on days like that.
My biggest takeaway from that museum was learning the difference between bison and buffalo.  I went to Haltom High School and proudly wore T-shirts emblazoned with buffaloes.  I stood on the sidelines during football games next to the buffalo mascot shouting "B-U-F-F-A-L-O!"  I know what a buffalo looks like; or so I thought.  I directed the kids to the buffalo at the museum and was just about to bust out a speech about buffaloes when I realized that the sign said bison.  I had to ask an employee.
"Excuse me, why does this say bison?  It's a buffalo."
Here's what I learned.
Bison live in North America.  Buffaloes live in Africa.


Notice the horns are different as well.  So when I was in high school, apparently I should have been leading the crowd in cheering "B-I-S-O-N!"  Kind of embarrassing.

Besides exploring and learning together, I also love that museums have no laundry to fold or dishes to wash.  My job is to be present as a tour guide.  There are few distractions and I can observe the kids interacting with others and learning.  I love that we weren't pressed for time like most people there.  Every parent/daycare escort seemed to be tugging on the children's hands:  "We've got to go see other stuff.  We want you to see everything and we've only got a little time left!"  Not my kids.  If they were interested in something, we stayed there until they became disinterested.

I especially enjoyed watching the kids play on the kid construction area; a replica of the Dallas skyline.  Paul chose to build towers by himself and stayed focused for 20 minutes doing that.  Claire decided to create a community.  She went to each child at the area and asked if they wanted to be on her "team."  She had them organized and gave them different roles of sorting and carrying blocks.  She was directing without being rudely bossy and she was super-excited about her team.  When we needed to move to a different exhibit she ran to inform each child of where we were going so they could follow us.  She was a motivational leader and great organizer and delegator.  Paul was focused on the task at hand and stuck with it until he was done.  I cannot wait to watch them grow up and develop their skills.

At lunchtime we ate outside in the shade.  We started feeding the pigeons our bread crusts and Paul was delighted that a little chickadee was able to nab a piece that he had thrown.  All throughout our lunch other children approached the birds stomping or waving their arms wildly.  My kids kept saying, "Why are they doing that?  They're being mean to the birds!"  I loved to see the compassion they had for animals that are often ignored or even disdained.

Museums are the places where I feel like the best mom I can be and where I am immeasurably proud of my children.  We should go more often.

Here's some photos of our adventure that day:

 The kids raced to see who could complete a dinosaur puzzle first.

Flying like a 3D bird.

 Paul's impression of an eagle.

Digging for fossils.

Craft time!

Racing a T-Rex

What we're excited about right now

Here is what excites me right now:

Anne Lamott is coming to Fort Worth!

Learn more about her April 2 appearance here.

The first Anne Lamott book I ever read was Operating Instructions.  It's about raising her son and personal growth.  I really enjoyed her style and have often purchased and gifted that book to others.  But then when I read Grace Eventually, I was completely in love.  I love her humility and honesty about struggling with life.  Through  her writing, she seems like the kind of down-to-earth person I'd love to sit and have a giant cup of coffee with and just listen to what's going on in her head.

I will be inviting people to come sit with me at this event, but please be warned that I am VERY EXCITED and I plan to arrive an hour early so I can get a great seat.

Around our house, we're also excited about the Perot Museum.  I heard from a friend that on the first weekend of  the month, Bank of America customers get in free with their debit card.  So we went on the first weekend in March.  This museum is phenomenal.  We have an excellent museum in Fort Worth that our family continues to have a membership to and we visit it often.  But this new one is world class.  It's also crazy crowded.  A family membership is $100, so we went ahead and purchased one that day.  I took the kids back over spring break and we took our time exploring and we had fun.  If you take your family, buy your tickets online first, because they sell out daily.  And be prepared for crowds and Dallas kids that aren't quite the same as Fort Worth ones.  Riding the TRE is a good option, especially with crazy parking situations, but it is a 1/2 mile walk from the train station to the museum.  And, if you wear your Optimus Prime outfit, you are extra cool!

A great book I'm reading right now is My Formerly Hot Life by Stephanie Dolgoff.  I can't give a complete review of it yet because I'm only on Chapter 3, but so far it's a coming of age story about moms and the physical and mental transitions that go along with it.

Last night Adam and I went to a concert together.  We used to do that all the time, but the times, they've been a changing.  His musical taste also differs greatly from mine, so there are few artists that he likes that I find willing to pay ticket price plus $10/hour for a babysitter to go see.  He was able to get some discount tickets, though, and it's spring break, so I figured we could stay out late.  We went and saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.  Adam was quite excited about the concert and has been trying to educate me for a month so I was ready for the live show.  Frankly, I was more excited about a night out than the concert.  It ended up being great.  It was at SMU and we enjoyed eating at a tiny Italian restaurant before the show.  We actually sat down in comfortable chairs the entire show and were able to enjoy it without being surrounded by obnoxious people.  I was intrigued to observe that the crowd was 99.5 percent white.  I counted less than 10 minorities and wondered why.  Twice we just stood in the crowd people watching, which was fun.  I complimented a 25 year old man on his 15 inch long beard and we observed several interesting ways to dye your hair.  Lots of tattoos.  I wanted to go and engage several in conversation about their choice in clothes/hair color/tattoos, but didn't want to creep anyone out.  It was really fascinating.

The light engineering was fantastic and the band played a wide variety of instruments, including a violin, all of which we could actually hear.  It was a good show.

Our little free library is getting more buzz.  Two libraries are being constructed right now because they heard about ours.  Our FB page is up to 60 likes.  We have started rotating out the books that don't move and instead, leaving those books in random places with a registered number from www.bookcrossing.com .

I've also moved all my email over to Google, where I now use my google drive, task bar, reader, and other features daily.  It has made a difference in sorting through the action emails I get daily.  I still have my yahoo account, but you can now reach me quicker at mrs.sarahboyette@gmail.com

(I hate the mrs. part of this and feel it's kind of pretentious, but the email system is so awesome, I'm getting over it.)