Mommy Poppins has a great post on
Visiting the New York Metropolitan Museum with Kids.
Her advice is well taken, and applies more broadly than just the met. There's no reason you cannot take your kids to any museum and have them enjoy it. In fact, we love taking the kids into art museums and art galleries. While we might not get to see everything we planned, it's great fun to see what they respond to.
Here's some additional tips for taking your kids to art museums:
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Prepare them. We love the mommy poppins list of books for the Met, and we often find books about other museums on Amazon.
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Respect their interests. Over time you'll learn what your children enjoy seeing. If they're not into something, don't drag them through it thinking that they will grow an appreciation over time
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Respect their limits. The fastest way to make your children hate the museum is to insist that they stay until they've seen every last thing.
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Make it fun, and get them engaged. The goal is to help grow your children's enjoyment of art, not to make them pass a quiz at the end of the day. You might be able to slip in the names of a few painters or movements, but really your focus should be on things your kids respond to.. For young kids, it can be fun just to talk about what they see in the picture, which colors they like, or which is their favorite picture in a room. Toddlers love to mimic the poses they see in sculptures. Older kids might enjoy a museum scavenger hunt where they try to find something specific or see who can find the most pictures of dogs.
Related links: Enjoying Cultural Activities with Kids and
Visiting an Art Museum with Children
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Posted on August 28, 2007 |
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Here is a great website for finding Zoos and Aquariums in your destination aza.org
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Posted on August 20, 2007 |
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Here's a great website for finding Children's Museums around the world. Childrensmuseums.org
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Posted on August 20, 2007 |
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Yesterday's New York times has a story about passengers stuck on the Tarmac for 5 hours who organized a revolt:
"What made the Continental flight somewhat different was that passengers organized and protested by clapping in rhythm and drumming on overhead bins. Finally, the pilot, worried about mayhem, called the police."
"We did not have water, food, toilet paper” on the plane, ... “The toilets were clogged and completely unsanitary. Moreover, there were a number of children and older and special-needs passengers, including a diabetic and a pregnant woman, who desperately needed attention.”
While 5 hours clearly seems over the top, it's not unusual to be stuck on the tarmak for an hour or two. What would you do if you were stranded on the tarmak with your kids for an extended period of time? Here are some of our suggestions:
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If the plane door has not been closed yet, ask whether you can let your children walk and play on the jetway. Flight staff are often cooperative (they don't like crying children either)
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Try walking your children up and down the aisle.
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Get your children involved in some positive play with the neighbors in front of and behind you. (Peekaboo is hard for even the most stoic travellers to resist). They'll be a lot more understanding when your children have a difficult time later if they've seen them being cute.
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Even though you're frusterated, try not to let your kids know it. They'll only pick up on your mood.
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Resist the temptation to load your kids up on juice or sugary snacks, it will only make them harder to control later.
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Engage your kids in quiet play. If they're old enough, try making up stories about why the flight is delayed (maybe squirrels in the cockpit?), where the plane should go instead, or make a list of things you would pack if you were staying at your destination for a year.
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Posted on August 15, 2007 |
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I stumbled upon this cool website for kids travel gear today: MadAllie.com. I wish I'd seen their cool collection of backpacks before I ordered my son's preschool pack!
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Posted on August 14, 2007 |
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Today's New York times has an article warning parents not to use Benadryl to sedate kids on airplanes (or any other time). Personally, we've never tried it. We learned early on that Tylenol makes our son hyper, and kids sleep well in our arms, but I can definately understand the temptation...
"doctors say there is one lesson to take away: drugs like Benadryl should never be given to sedate a child. For one thing, they can have side effects, including constipation and respiratory problems. And for another, in some children they produce the exact opposite of the desired effect."
Links:
These Drugs are for Colds, Not Fidgets
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Posted on August 14, 2007 |
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I always love to hear what my son remembers after returning from a trip. Here's what he talked about today
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Waking up from his nap on the train to Washington Park
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Going back in the Jamison Square wading pool for a second day
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"The train is coming in three minutes"
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Getting Frog and Toad dolls at Powell's books
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Seeing the hotel we stayed in on our last visit and wanting to go inside
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Posted on August 13, 2007 |
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People often tell me that they're worried their kids will be scared sleeping away from home. I can only speak for my own kids, but now that he's old enough, my toddler repeatedly asks to stay in a hotel. Here are his favorite things.
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A fully sanctioned night in bed with Mom and Dad
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Lots of new doors to open and close and drawers to investigate
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Room Service
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Getting to ride the elevator to and from the room
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Hotel lobbies with big couches or interesting furniture
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The bedside digital clock (Which he says tells when the next train will come)
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Posted on August 13, 2007 |
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Everyone slept in today, giving us parents a much needed break! We had a low key breakfast in the hotel room with food we had picked up at whole foods the night before, and met my parents down in the lobby.
One of the toughest things about leaving always is getting the final bit of packing done. The kids have a tendancy to pull things out of the suitcase or make a mess just as we're getting completed & then we're back at square one. Historically everone gets a little stressed out at this point. Finally, we wised up & I took the kids down to the lobby while my husband finished the final packing and got us checked out. That small optimization made things about 10 times easier.
We loved
Jamison Park so much that we took the light rail back once more. My son could not believe his luck. After lots of fun romping, we had a snack (and lunch for my son) at the child friendly Sip and Kranz restaurant. We all sat on the patio eating fresh fruit with a nutella dipping sauce while my toddler had pb&j with goldfish and grapes... pretty much his favorite meal.
We have a solid history of lulling my son to sleep on a soothing train ride, so we took a long ride on the MAX line (which is basically a big loop). He came close to sleeping, but the activity of people getting on and off the train proved to be a bit too much today... at least he got a little bit of soothing downtime.
We jumped off the train at the Portland Art Museum's rental sales gallery (something I've been wanting to check out). As long as we don't overstay his attention span, it's easy to get our toddler to cooperate with being in an art gallery. If you think about it, art is just big pages from a picture book hanging on the wall. We engage him in conversation about what he sees, what he likes, what he thinks that the people or animals in a painting are doing. When he was smaller, it was fun for him to find all the dogs (or babies, or whatever) or to name things in the painting. We hope we're building a budding art enthusiast, but honestly we'd be happy with just a little time to enjoy the artwork ourselves!
We had another excellent dinner at Oba! Then changed everyone into PJs and got back in the car to head home. My son complained a little, saying that he wanted to sleep in the hotel room again (poor guy, there's just nothing he doesn't love about a hotel room.
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Posted on August 12, 2007 |
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The car ride down was reasonably successful. It took the kids a little while to fall asleep, but they eventually did. Checkin at the Hotel Monaco went smootly, and we love the suite. There's a bedroom and a separate sitting room with a sofa. The decor is funky with lots of fun pillows on the bed. Last night I was able pull out the sofa bed and sleep with my daughter (10 months) there while my husband slept with my son on the king bed. That worked fine except that my back is a bit stiff this morning. Tomorrow I'll try getting my daughter to sleep in the living room and then transferring her to the king bed with everyone else once my son is asleep. We usually don't use a crib when we travel for just a few days because it isn't worth the effort required to get the kids used to it before we head home.
We all met up in the lobby this morning. There was plenty of space for the kids to move around, and lots of interesting pillows and furniture. Better yet, because the Monaco is a dog friendly hotel, there were lots of dogs for my kids to look at and say "hi"
to. There was even a stand with coffee and tea so that we could get a quick fix before heading out the door.
One of our best memories from the last trip was the the wading pool at Jamison Square Park , so that was the first place we headed this morning. We took the
Max light rail train to Couch street and picked up sandwiches and drinks for later at the
Pearl Bakery. Then we were back on the train, taking it to the very end of the free ride area and walking the last block to the park.
My son had an excellent time splashing around in the wading pool. There's nothing I can really say about this, except that it's hard to imagine that he could be any happier. He sat down for about 15 minutes, devoured the Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich we brought him, and ran right back into the wading pool. My husband, who wasn't able to join us on the last trip to Portland was absolutely delighted with how fun the park was.
Needing a snack, I stopped into
Sip and Kranz and ran into my friend Robin who learned about the Jamison Park from this blog! We decided to walk our babies around the Pearl district together and get them to sleep while browsing shoes and other accesories. Perfect.
After both kids had naps (my son had his in the stroller, it's virtually impossible to get him to nap in a hotel room when there are so many exciting things to explore there) we hopped on a train to
Washington Park. once there, we took the convenient park shuttle to the children's play area, which turned out to be tons of fun! After that we had a quick dinner at Whole Foods and then one last train ride back to the hotel for bedtime.
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Posted on August 11, 2007 |
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