Air & Space Museum

​On Sunday another Mom friend, Jenn,  and I visited the Air & Space Museum with our toddlers. I’ve been wanting to go to museums with Bram for a while now, and after seeing this blog post about Big Bird’s Planetarium show: One World, One Sky, I figured it was a good enough excuse to finally go.

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Yes we wore matching LulaRoe airplane leggings, we got tons of compliments and chuckles from others. He’s recently shown an interest in Sesame Street, especially Elmo & Cookie Monster “ku-key” as he called him. We drove together into the city (we had initially planned on metro, but figured driving with toddlers would be better!) and parked about a block away (there was street parking early on a Sunday morning, but the bazillion parking rule signs stress me out) and we paid $15 to park for the day at a private lot. We got to the museum at 10:04am (they open at 10:00am), there was a pretty long line at the 6th Street entrance, and it took us nearly 20 minutes to finally get inside. There was a sign stating “no outside food or drink” and we both panicked a bit since that was half of our diaper bag contents… what do they expect parents to do?!?! But luckily we put the bags through the metal detector and they didn’t say a word. We were both babywearing and didn’t need to remove them for the security process. Luckily both kids didn’t protest during the wait, but several other parents spent the time corralling their kids on the steps and sidewalks running around.

Since the show started at 10:30am, and we got through security at 10:25am we went straight to the information desk, got our tickets and headed upstairs to the show. The theater was about half full, we got seats right in the center near the projector thing so the kiddos had room to run around if they wanted. Both were utterly amazed and entertained by the show though. Constantly saying "woah" and pointing. Bram did wiggle quite a bit on my lap, wanting up and down, standing up then laying back, etc to see the entire show (it shows at all angles around the room and above you) but he honestly did better than I expected. He was so excited to see Big Bird, and the other characters. He was great for about 18 minutes or so then pulled my arm to leave, so my friend stayed and we left the theater. We looked at a nearby plane for a few minutes until everyone else left the theater.  Apparently there is a reading time at 11:00am for the younger kids but we knew they were done sitting down and wanted to run around for a bit so we skipped it.

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We tried walking around for a few minutes but the biggest complication when sightseeing with 2 toddlers is undoubtedly they are on different schedules. Evie, the other toddler was ready for lunch but Bram wanted to explore more. So we went downstairs to the Space Race area, found a nice spot under the Apollo and ate some snacks before deciding to head next door to the American Indian Museum which has an AMAZING cafeteria for lunch (the A&S museum only had fast food). We both got an Fry Bread chicken taco ($13!!! Ahhh but delicious). I had brought the always Bram pleaser, penne paste and sausage for him as he is in a picky phase and we sat by the window watching a waterfall. 

Toddlers being toddlers we then split up and let them lead to see a bit of the museum. Bram and I ended up on the 3rd floor’s imagiNATIONS Activity Center, which was AWESOME For kids. It was pretty crowded but not too crazy. It’s completely interactive and kid friendly, listening to animal sounds, practicing kayak balancing, building an igloo, showing the science of snow shoes, even a traditional house to walk through. After 20 minutes or so Jenn texted that Evie was just not having it and that she’d meet us outside/back at the car when we were done. Bram could have easily stayed there much longer as we had only gotten to see a few fun things, but I totally sympathized and know they can have off days, so I was able to pry Bram away and we headed back home by 12:20pm.

 
​​I definitely want to take him back to both museums, and hope to make this is regular thing, there are so many different museums I want to go to with him! Its so sad that we live so close to such an amazing cultural wonderland and never take advantage of it, Bram is an awesome "excuse" to finally get to explore more.