At the Museum

We went to the Brooklyn Children's Museum yesterday during the free hours. (Thanks, Natalie, for the suggestion.) Simon was pretty excited about it. He took an "early nap" at 10:30 and didn't sleep a wink for the 3 hours he was locked in his room. Ha! Which meant, of course, that within minutes of getting in the stroller he zonked out and slept the whole (20 minute) walk there. Ha! again.Our first stop in the museum was the pizzeria. Simon learned the hard way that you can't eat a foam mushroom, and that is how "pretend" became the word of the day. We went grocery shopping -- minus the stress of me trying to keep Simon from running all over the place and plus the fun of him being able to pick all of the groceries himself -- hung out in the Chinese bookstore, and "danced" on the stage in the music room. Simon was really in his element while playing in the "sandbox" (or garden, as the sign said), where they had a variety of pretend vegetables:

"What is this?" he'd ask.
"I think it is broccoli. It looks like broccoli to me."
"No. No, I think it is a cauliflower. Or maybe a tomato. I think maybe it is a tomato." And he'd throw it on the pile.
We did that for a long time, until we decided the explore the nature exhibits. It was there that we happily discovered that Spike, the poor deceased baby red-eared slider turtle, was alive and well and living as an adult painted turtle at the museum. Imagine that! What a relief to have that off our minds.
Simon seemed unsure of whether he wanted to go back next week. "No, I don't want to not never go back to the moo-zee-zum," were his exact words, I believe. Hmmm. But I know it made an impression on him because this morning over breakfast we had this exchange:

Micah: "Oliver, are you a rooster?" (Oliver was wearing a shirt with a rooster on it.)
Simon: "No, Oliver is not a rooster. Oliver is a ox." (Puzzled look from Micah.)
Me: "Oh, that's right. We learned at the Chinese bookstore yesterday that Oliver is an ox. Do you remember what you are, Simon?"
Simon: "I am a pig and Mom is a pig."
Micah: "And what am I?"
Simon: "You are a horse, Dad." Yep, we're a bunch of farm animals. (I'm referring to the Chinese zodiac, fyi.)
So, no matter what he says, I think that by next Wednesday he'll be thrilled to take an early nap so he can visit Spike and bake some pretend pizza. And maybe by the end of the winter he'll be dancing along with me on the dancing stage.