Is December over? and A Tale of One Museum

Is it me or did December just vanish? How does time do that? Okay, I'll address that in a more introspective place. For now, let me note that December was filled with moving, wrapping paper, more moving, sugar, work, kids, noise, chaos, more moving, unpacking, settling, moving, work, and I'm pretty sure there was more sugar.

One of my goals for Christmas was to give the kids things that were more interactive or involved more than just talking toys. So, I got them lots of books and a puppet theatre thing-y (is there an actual name for it?) with a few puppets, a sled, and then I got really socially conscious mom on them and got us tickets to see an exhibit at a museum in downtown Salt Lake. The museum is called the Leonardo and the exhibit is called Body Worlds 3. It is an exhibit that focuses on the heart, but shows real bodies that have been donated to science and are plasticized...basically, they look kindof fake, but they are real.

So, this past weekend, off we went to have our intellectual adventure. We were going to see what our bodies REALLY look like under our skin. The kids were totally stoked and we were singing in the car on the way over (that part is not terribly unusual, actually). I was SURE that Brennan would like it. He loves science stuff and he likes looking at bones and whenever we go to the doctor's office he likes looking at the diagrams. I didn't know if Kaia was quite old enough (there are bodies, organs, internal systems...all real stuff), but she seemed intrigued so I figured she should get to go.

I spent $57 for the four of us...actually, that was with Elise being free...which is a lot for entertainment when you are me and...well, monetarily poor! However, remember I was being socially conscious mom and wanted to provide an intellectually stimulating experience that would surely be remembered in gross (but accurate) detail over the dinner table for days...maybe even weeks to come! I handed over my debit card secure in the knowledge that THIS was going to be worth it. While waiting to go in, we watched the dancing skeleton image that was projected on the wall of the museum and the kids were totally engaged as they imagined things the skeleton might say. My internal mom identity was smiling in that self-satisfied, assured manner that moms do.

We entered the museum with Elise strapped in the stroller (do I want to risk her two year old hands breaking a $20,000 plasticized spleen?!?) and to the sound of a beating heart. It was subtle and yet encompassing...rather like our own heartbeat (go figure :).

As we pressed through people and looked at several different athletic bodies without the skin and various scenes and body parts (they had the whole circulatory and nervous systems without the bodies, but suspended as they would be in ours! It was fascinating!), I would read some of the blurbs to the kids and Brennan would practice his rapidly increasing reading skills as well. Kaia was not scared. She wasn't even morbidly fascinated...just plain interested. She was entranced. Elise was getting so excited from her stroller that I had to remind her to tone down her decibel level a tad so that the crush of adults could hear their $5 information audio sticks.

And, then there was Brennan. The one for whom I had really tried to create this experience...After about 10 minutes, he had had enough. He was thoroughly disgusted. And, he said so. Loudly. Repeatedly. He thought it was gross. Did we have to look at another body? Eeeeew. I asked him why it was gross-it was just what's in him. That was not okay for him to hear. Out came the whining tool. How do kids know to use that when there are lots of adults around? Soon, the adults around us were having to replay sections on their $5 information audio sticks. Brennan's whining was interrupting the facts about the pancreas or the slice from an obese person's abdomen (that was INSANE!). I finally found a chair near the exit where Brennan had to sit and wait.

Most people take 90 minutes to go through the exhibit. My friend AmyLou went with her friend and they took 3 hours. Me, Brennan, Kaia & Elise took 28 minutes.

Worth every penny...hmmm...