Museum Fun (revisited)

The Boston Science Museum was where Iris and I first met. I still remember that day well. After visiting the Science Museum, we walked with our friends to the park just around the corner. We got so caught up talking, playing in the park – we loved the swings –, and taking photos that I left a jacket I’d borrowed from my dad at that park along with a pair of new AirPods that I got for college.

Though I got chewed out by my dad for losing his jacket, I would later be forgiven by him for it after Iris and I got married and had Abigail.

We often reminisce about that day, about all the silly little jokes we came up with that day and Iris still makes fun of me for losing that jacket – “You were so obsessed with me, you couldn’t think about anything else!” – and for allegedly pushing her off of the swings – fake news, she just couldn’t stick the landing like the natural gymnast I am – but most of all, we talk about how much Abigail would love all the exhibits at the Boston Science Museum, if she was just old enough.

Well, Abigail is now one-and-a-half-years old. We are getting ready for the whirlwind of finals, graduation, summer internships, and moving. So, we seized an open weekend and planned our trip to the Boston Science Museum. Iris was able to get our tickets through the Cambridge Public Library for a much-reduced price (highly recommend doing this). We had a mini picnic at the lawn between Jefferson Laboratory and Paine Music Hall, complete with champagne and soap bubbles, and then we were off to the museum!

At the Boston Science Museum…

Abigail loves everything. Everything is just new to her, and she is seeing everything for the first time. At the first exhibit, Sea Birds of New England, she stands on the ground and presses the big buttons in front of her, which illuminate one species of bird at a time in the diorama. She presses the buttons over and over again, cycling through the dozen or so buttons once, twice, and then three times, smiling with glee every time. While she did that, Iris and I enjoy looking for the birds hidden in the grass, though mostly we watch Abby.

After nearly twenty minutes, we walk around the rest of the dioramas, trying to get Abigail to move along at a slightly faster pace. She takes in bears, bobcats, and more birds. We touch fossils, and then hurry on to the next exhibit.

We get to a polar expedition exhibit. Maybe it’s just an illusion, but it definitely feels like the temperature dropped a few degrees. Iris and I shiver while Abigail bounds with energy. The exhibit lights up with a cold blue light and the walls are made to look like a glacier. Abby doesn’t really know what to make of all this so she wiggles herself into a crack in the glacier wall and takes it all in. Soon, though, she is up and at it. She crawls through igloos and ice caves, while Iris and I read the plaques and watch the information videos (still interesting, even to adults!).

We go on to an engineering exhibit that is super hands-on. There is a marble run mini exhibit but with soft plastic balls, where you can rearrange sections of track magnetized to the wall. Abby, ever our little helper, ran around enthusiastically helping us to pick up the balls and put them at the top of the track. She counts down with us, “3, 2, 1, … GO!”, clapping her hands enthusiastically as the balls raced down. The other parents and kids there were great sports too, and Abby played with older kiddos, too, helping the older girls and boys pick up the balls and put them at the top of the track. There were two other mini-exhibits we explored – build-your-own diver and build-your-own pinball machine – and though Abby loved those too, the marble run was definitely her favorite.

At this point, Abby still insists that she has tons of energy, but we can see tell that she is about ready for her belated afternoon nap. However, there is still so much more Museum of Science to explore. The entire second floor to be precise.

We quickly race through the physics playground: human spinner, check; balancing beam, check. We then quickly race through the greenhouse: flowers, check; photo over the Charles River, check; snake, check; stick insect, check; spiders, check. And we get Abby back to the car just in time for her nap.

While we head home, we reminisce about how this excursion was three years in the making, how special of a city Boston is too have all these activities for babies, and how much we wanted to go to Tatte’s, while Abigail slept, to get some pastries, Nutella cookies, and much-deserved coffee and orange juice.