Friday field trip: Children's Museum of Phoenix

On the final day of my recent stay with Bubby and Baby Mac, we went to the Children's Museum of Phoenix. The museum is located less than 10 minutes from the airport, so it was a great way to end the visit—and gave us a spot to play in case my flight was delayed.

The Children's Museum of Phoenix is three floors of fun and one of Bubby's favorite places to play. It was Baby Mac's first time there, and he found plenty of fun himself.

We started on the top floor, with the plan to work our way down. The "Noodle Forest" is the highlight there and something Bubby couldn't wait to show Gramma. Right outside the forest is a paint-with-water activity that proved Baby Mac to be a passionate artist.

It was just the beginning of my last few delight-filled hours with my grandsons:

 

Other exhibits on the third floor include a shopping market, ice cream cart, a "Texture Cafe" for making meals with various materials, a "Grand Ballroom" where you can see the chain reaction from beginning to end, make-believe pickle and pencil cars, and much, much more. It's easy to see why the third floor is Bubby's floor of choice.

The second floor features a "Building Big" room for making forts of all shapes and sizes, a trike wash, and an art studio with ongoing projects (Bubby made a pretty butterfly and helped paint a purple rocket).

On the first (atrium) floor, the main attraction is the Schuff-Perini Climber, a climbing gym like you've never seen before. It's visible from all floors, and I climbed with Bubby all the way to the top...in a dress and thankful it was a rather slow day so Gramma could take her time. The first floor also has a Whoosh! machine of connected tubes where kids can feed nylon scarves through and watch them fly—one of Baby Mac's favorite exhibits, along with the many "Baby Zone" play areas throughout the museum.

The atrium wall is lined with a stunning display of CDs hanging from top to bottom. A museum worker told me children from around the area, including a school for homeless children, wrote wishes on the CDs to be hung on the wall at the museum's opening about four years ago. She said the wishes are touching and sometimes heartbreaking to read, everything from "I want an iPod" to "I want my daddy to come home."

Our visit to the museum was exhilerating—and exhausting. Bubby and Baby Mac were sound asleep in their car seats by the time we made it to the airport, just minutes after leaving the museum. When Megan dropped me off at the departure curb, I opened Bubby's door to give him a farewell kiss; with eyes still closed, he mumbled, "I love you...send me mail." Totally zonked-out Baby Mac got a kiss, Megan got a hug, and Gramma headed for home.

The Children's Museum of Phoenix was a great way to end my visit to the desert. We just might have to make pre-flight visits there a farewell tradition.

Interested in taking a similar field trip? Find details here:

Children's Museum of Phoenix • 215 N. 7th Street, Phoenix, AZ 85034 • (602) 253-0501

(If you want to see the full pictures from our visit or see them more slowly, feel free to take a look in my Brag Book.)

Today's question:

If you were asked to write a wish on a CD like those in the stunning display at the Children's Museum of Phoenix, what would today's wish be?

Missing the ordinary everydayness

Now that my kids are long grown and long gone, I occasionally miss the little things about having kids in our midst. Like watching them fully engaged in and enjoying ordinary, everyday activities. No posing or posturing, just playing.

Fortunately I have Megan to text me photos of ordinary everyday moments that, to a grandmother, are not that ordinary at all anymore and are truly something special to see.

To wit, scenes from a recent playdate—an afternoon hosted by Bubby and Baby Mac, featuring a car wash, snack time, and play pals:

So cool to see Baby Mac hanging with the big kids. And Bubby, too, obviously relishing his role as king of festivities.

Today's question:

What ordinary everydayness do you miss from your childrearing years?

Please read

Please read. Not just this post, but in general: Please read.

I'm a site coordinator for the local children's literacy center. I've spent the last two weeks struggling to match far too few—yet much appreciated—volunteer reading tutors with far too many students in overwhelming, unbelievable need.

Perhaps there wouldn't be such a need, may not be so many children lagging behind in the very most basic, very most important of skills, if more people would please be a model...if more people would please take the lead...if more people would please read.

Please read with your grandchildren, children, nieces, nephews, with any child in need.

Please read to youngsters and with youngsters, no matter their age.

Please read story books, chapter books, comics, graphic novels. Please read novels, poems, riddles, jokes.

Please read road signs and maps and plaques on the places you go.

Please read recipes, cereal boxes, soda cans, milk cartons. Please read chip bags, price tags and labels throughout the grocery store, throughout any store.

Please read television shows—turn the closed-captioning on then read. Together.

Please read movies, too—subtitled movies!

Please read calendars, and websites, and text messages. Please read gift cards, bulletin boards, ads, and restaurant menus.

Please read game directions, game boards, game controllers. Please read instructions for building, instructions for creating, instructions for taking apart.

Please read newspapers, magazines, e-mail, real mail, junk mail, mailboxes.

Please read programs...from school, from plays, from church, from sporting events.

Please read rosters, billboards, scoreboards.

Please read. Anything. Everything. Together.

Please read.

Today's question:

Other than this post, what have you most recently read, by yourself or with another?

Imagine that

Life in the desert—where Bubby and Baby Mac live—is a wee bit different from life in the mountains—where I live and where Bubby and Baby Mac's mommy grew up. For one thing, it's often too hot in the desert in the summer time for kiddos to play outside. Seriously too hot. As in Extreme Heat Warnings from the National Weather Service hot.

That certainly doesn't mean, though, that there's no fun to be had.

When temps get too hot and high in the desert, folks simply take the fun indoors. They forego sizzling playgrounds and descend upon indoor play areas instead. Air-conditioned play areas.

One of Bubby's favorite indoor play centers is called Imagination Avenue. We visited last week, and he certainly exercised his imagination while there.

He imagined himself as a policeman, a fireman, a doctor, a grocery shopper.  

He also baked cookies and cupcakes, worked puzzles, played school. And he built houses and boxes and a tunnel for taking a break from the workout.

With so much to do and the myriad imaginative options to explore, the fact we couldn't play outside no longer mattered one single bit. Not to Bubby, not to Megan, not to me.

Not even to Baby Mac.

Imagine that!

Today's question:

What is your favorite indoor activity on hot summer days?