Kids delighted by museum

“We’re going to the see-um! Do you want to come with us?” three-year-old Nicholas excitedly asked his grandfather.
As he had never been to a museum before, he wasn’t quite sure of the pronunciation. I thought “see-um” was a perfect description of a building containing lots of stuff to see. Personally, I love museums. The problem is that there is never enough time to spend in one.
I wasn’t sure which museum we were going to, but it didn’t matter. I enjoy them all. After being corrected on his pronunciation several times, Nicholas decided we were going to see Wallykazam!, a cartoon I had never heard of until a few days ago. I was afraid he would be disappointed that Wally wasn’t there, but all the new sights soon overshadowed the dearth of cartoon characters.
The first big attraction was the parking garage. Nicholas and his big brother, Jacob, were amazed that we were up so high. Big sister, Emma, took it all in stride. Then came an elevator ride that was only slightly less exciting than the parking garage.
It turns out we were at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. While the grandparents choked at the prices, the boys’ eyes grew huge at all the things to see. They pulled their mother this way and that as yet another exhibit caught their attention.
They marveled at the size of the dinosaur skeletons, and demanded to know the names of all of them. Emma read as many as she could. We examined all the giants at least twice. After a relatively quick trip through the mineral section, we entered the area devoted to Egypt.
That is where Emma and I lost the rest of our group. I dallied in front of tiny statues depicting ancient gods. When I entered the chamber that had real mummies, Emma waited at the door. It seems that Emma doesn’t like mummies. They weren’t quite what I expected. They were better.
We wandered through the rest of the display and passed by a male mummy. This one sported a short beard. Somehow it never occurred to me that some mummies had beards.
That’s when I realized that nobody I recognized was in sight. We did a quick run through of Egypt again. No daughter, grandsons or husband could be found. Emma and I ventured into the next section which featured American Indians but we still didn’t see anyone. If it hadn’t been for a cell phone, we would still be wandering aimlessly.
The boys continued pulling their mother every which way as one display after another caught their attention. We walked into the butterfly exhibit. The glass ceiling soared high above trees dripping with greenery and my daughter’s favorite flower — orchids.
As the rest of us marveled at the proliferation of butterflies flitting around, my daughter was examining the orchids. She took note of how some of them were wired to simple boards while others had their roots bound to branches by carefully concealed wires. The variety was astounding. For the children, the highlight of the butterfly exhibit was the green iguana. It was orange. Apparently this particular green iguana turns orange at maturity.
We passed through the insect section, where I decided everything really is bigger in Texas. We saw an illustration of how oil is refined. We viewed the skeletal remains of ancient humans and so much more.
There were plenty of other things that we didn’t get to, but by this time we were all tired and hungry. The only eatery inside the building was deemed unacceptable.
The parking garage was just as fascinating the second time around. After negotiating through what I considered to be heavy traffic, we found an acceptable restaurant and had a good meal.
The ride home was quiet, as everyone was tired. There was no more mention of Wallykazam! I would say that Nicholas’ first trip to a “see-um” was a success. The children are looking forward to going back again and so are we.[[In-content Ad]]