Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Giveaway for little explorers: The Bay Area Discovery Museum (Marin)

12/24: Winner! Amy M - thanks all for entering. Happy holidays and happy museum going!

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It's giveaway time!

I have FIVE passes to the Bay Area Discovery Museum!

 

Win This: Leave a comment telling me your favorite Bay Area children's museum(s). One entry per person. I'll draw a name via the usual random.org on December 24, 2011 and announce the winner at the top of this post.

The Scoop: Tickets are valid through 6/30/12 and can be used for children or adults. Tickets normally cost $11 each, so a family of 5 will save $55.

Sponsor: Thank you to Scholar Share for sponsoring this giveaway.

ScholarShare is California’s 529 College Savings Program. The recently revamped program features a minimum initial contribution of only $25 per portfolio to open an account and fees that have been reduced by approximately 30 percent, making ScholarShare one of the lowest priced 529 plans in the country. To sign up for an account or for more information about the plan, visit www.ScholarShare.com<

 

My top 10 Reasons to Visit the Bay Area Discovery Museum

1. The view. With a backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge, which will you watch, your kids or the scenery?

2. The sticks. Your kids will find them. Plus, sticks are Geek Dad approved.

3. The boats. There are two fishing boats to play in, one inside and one outside, and there is a sunken treasure ship. My favorite thing to do is to rock the inside fishing boat to make kids feel like they're sailing on a choppy sea. I call it the Feed the Fish activity.

4. The indoor/outdoor setting. Marin whether is a microclimate of sun and fog. We dash in/out of the buildings accordingly.

5.  The native plants. Look around, the plants have all gone native and it is beautiful.

6. The tree stumps. Climb to the top of the hill via a path of tree stumps. Go through a giant tree stump. Count the rings. Marvel, then go climb some actual trees. Yes, you can do that.

7.  Waterplay. Most kids have dunked their hands into a waterplay area, but this time, instead of tiny balls, they get to play with plastic fish and crabs!

8. The digging. Grab a shovel and dig for sunken treasure. Or dig through a construction site.

9. The gift shop. This is such a beautifully curated gift shop for kids. I'm all over the Barefoot Books.

10. The stress level. I don't know if it's slight the ocean mist or the soothing seaside color palette, but I never felt the stress I felt at other kid places. I didn't even think about germs when we were outside. It's just such a beautiful place. We were one on one with kids when until age 3, and then, I felt comfortable enough here to take my two kids on my own.

This photo of my son at the Bay Area Discovery Museum says it all to me. I call this photo "childhood."

 

11 Museum Memberships versus Staying Home

There was a nearly 6 year stretch of time when my boys and I (and sometimes, dad) did nothing else on weekends but museum hop. (My boys are 6 years and a bit.) We started with the purple museum when my boys were crawing and eventually made our way around the Bay Area and beyond, following the museum ciruit.

Today, we have 11 annual memberships at local museums and attractions. Some memberships we've renewed, some we've just let expire, at least until the next visit (to make the most of a "yearly" pass). We know where to go for stargazing during the day. We know where to go to see how semiconductor chips are made. We've been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium every 2-3 months for years, it seems.

It's to the point where my wallet is bulging with museum membership cards. Throw in all those frequent shopper cards and I can't even close my wallet. It's ridiculous. Now I keep those two stacks of cards separate from my wallet.

However, in the last 3 months since school started, I noticed that we have hardly been to museums at all. Whereas before, my boys would eagerly hop into the car and let me drive them anywhere (Exploratorium? Bay Discovery Museum? Gilroy Gardens?), now they just want to stay home.

Home. Now there's a novel idea.

Mummy time!

This past February, my boys and I ventured over to the de Young Museum in San Francisco to catch the King Tut exhibit. We'd read a lot of books about the famous king, we'd become members of San Jose's Rosicrucian Egyptian museum and we were all eager to learn more.

I'd anticipated that taking my 5-year-old boys to the de Young on my own would be challenging and I was right. It was hard. Though the weekday crowds were not as heavy as I'd anticipated, it was still crowded and we did a lot of waiting around. We had to wait until our appointed time to even begin queuing. We had to wait once more down in the special exhibits hall. It was cramped and stuffy and I think my boys had visions of green fields and free range ponies at that point.

The line slowly snaked into the exhibit. We had no choice but to go with the flow of people. One of my boys fell behind when a gilded object caught his eye. The crowd quickly filled any gaps between us, making it hard to stick together.

All of the artifacts were behind glass display cases. We looked briefly at everything, feeling pulled onward by the crowd. I wasn't able to study anything because I was busy trying to herd my boys together. I explained what I could and my boys tried to get a look at a few objects and then, it was over and we were at the exit. My boys were disappointed they didn't see any mummies.

Chalk Boy at the De Young

Whenever my children express an interest in something (besides Star Wars), I love to just run with it. It's like the window of opportunity is wide open so I make that interest our theme du jour, especially if it's something that interests me as well. The other day, while looking through our bookcase for something to read to my boys, I came across a long forgotten book I'd had since way before kids, when I first fell in love with France.

The book, Linnea in Monet's Garden, is a favorite of mine and while I wasn't a child when I read it, I wanted to be that child, that child who gets to go to France and see art and paste a city map of Paris into a scrapbook.

Then, of course, many years later, I became a mother of boys. I shoved the book way in the back of our bookshelves, behind the Harry Potter and the Mercy Watson and the Magic School Bus. Linnea has a lot of text so I thought it might be a bit of a tedious read to my boys who love Star Wars and who don't, at the moment, like to read books where the protagonist is a girl (with the exception of Princess Leia and Hermione, of course).

Chalk Boy was all mine for story time one night (his brother was reading with dad) and so I pulled out the book, expecting him to give it the thumbs down. But Chalk Boy was game.

So we read the book, with Chalk Boy engaged the entire time. After he went to bed, I planted the Tiny Folios edition of the Great Book of French Impressionism amongst his bathroom reading (yes, we have a basket of books in the kids' bathroom) and opened it to the pages showing Monet's Japanese footbridge.

The following morning, Chalk Boy came running with the book in hand. "Look what I found!" he said, smiling, showing me the pictures of the footbridge. "It's just like in the book we read last night."

I love manipulating my children.

Center of Attention at the Exploratorium

The young comedian stepped up to the podium and grabbed hold of the mic. The stage lights were shining brightly into his face, blocking out the audience, but he could feel them there. It was a full house. "Knock 'em dead, " I wanted to shout, but I knew that would be distracting to him. "What? What did you say, Mommy? Who's dead?" he'd ask, stepping off the stage.

"Say hello, say your name!" I suggested instead.

"Hello, HELLO! My name is Cheese Boy and I'm here on stage..." he announced, his voice echoing.

But the audience booed! Yes, they booed at a 3-year-old during his first moments on stage! What an unforgiving audience! Hmf!

But Cheese Boy kept smiling, though he looked up at me for reassurance.

"Say your joke, " I encouraged.

"Knock, knock...who's there?" he began, then changed his mind, "Why did the underwear cross the road?"

The audience burst into laughter, even before the punchline was said.

"They loved it!" I yelled from the sidelines.

Cheese Boy laughed nervously.

"Underwear!" he repeated, for emphasis.

"Boooooo! Booooooo!" the audience retorted.

"Oh, they didn't like that one this time, " I cautioned.

"Why not?" replied Cheese Boy, still smiling but looking a bit unsure.

"Why did the underwear cross the road?" asked Cheese Boy, boldly trying out the same joke.

The audience roared, again before the punchline was delivered.

"Because the carrot was waiting!" continued Cheese Boy as the audience clapped and whistled in approval.

Cheese Boy went on to try out a few more fragmented jokes that only a preschool boy might find amusing. His jokes were hit and miss. Sometimes the audience ate it up, sometimes they booed and hissed. What an emotional roller coaster for my little stand up comic, but that's exactly what the experience of the MIND exhibit ("Center of Attention") was supposed to be, a simulated experience in front of a "live" audience. 

"Come on, " I said, stepping out of the limelight within the photo sized booth, its tiny walls covered in black fabric, "Let's go find the shadow box!" And with that, we skipped off through the Exploratorium, in search of strobe lights.

Original Chalk and Cheese Chronicles blog post.

Parking at the Purple Museum

Like many SV families with young children, we have an annual membership to the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose. With its once bright but now slightly faded purple exterior, it's easily recognizable to those driving past. "Oooh, there's the Purple Museum!" shout my two boys, pointing from the car, "Let's go!" But wait, hold on boys -- mommy needs to pay for parking. After checking for spaces amongst the metered street parking, I swing into the public parking lot and spot the yellow parking-payment kiosk.

Plan A is to find a parking space close to the kiosk so I can buy the flat rate daily permit, place it on my dashboard and unload my kids in one swooping maneuver. However, at this moment, the parking lot is nearly full. I cross Plan A off my list.