the minnesota children's museum

After our trip to the zoo, I knew we had to hop back in the car and drive to St. Paul to see Thomas. The exhibit is about to close and I was feeling the pressure to follow through on a whole lot of promises and self-created hype. So I loaded up the kids for a second day of field trip fun and went to see Thomas the Train.

Truth-be-told, the exhibit was a bit chaotic and made me sort of mother-tired. The kind of tired that's caused by too many interventions helping your kid share or helping another kid share or stopping little tantrums before they become large scale. I try not to hover too much, but when you have this many kids driving trains on one little island, it can get a bit crowded. And no one this age is skilled at sharing.

So we left that room and found the station where kids can paint their own faces. Elsie has found my lipstick before, and after this experience I am terrified (and fully aware) of what will happen the next time she finds it.

We visited every room at the Children's Museum and in every room Ivar complained that "Thomas isn't in this room!" He had no interest in the other exhibits until after lunch. With some cheese and crackers in his belly he seemed to mellow a bit.

The trip made for a fun adventure into the city. The sky-ways were a huge highlight and left me thinking we need to come back sometime with no destination and just run the sky-ways to burn off some energy. We sat for a while and watched cars and buses drive right under us. A sweet little memory.