A Day at the Museums with Alex!

Since nothing too exciting happened today (John Michael ate more avocado & loved it, Gracie fell of the tike bike & hurt herself, and Clara walked thru really slick, yucky mud in her new white tennis shoes), I thought I would write about a day from about a month ago!

About the only good thing about Hurricane Ike was that it gave us a chance to see Aunt Julia & Cousin Alex (Uncle Jamie had headed back to check on the house & start cleanup in the yard)! Alex had his tonsils out the Tuesday before Ike hit, which made their stay in Dallas not so fun and also kept us from visiting as much as we would have liked. He wasn't supposed to get too riled up & if you have never seen Alex & Clara together, well ... it certainly wouldn't have fit with the doctor's orders.

We decided to get together and go to the Kimball museum to see the impressionist exhibit and then if all went well, go to the Modern (right across the street) for lunch. The girls have some touch & feel art books and lots of the pictures in the exhibit are in their books so I thought it would be neat for them to see the real thing. I think Gracie really enjoyed it & I am hoping to take Clara back sometime while Gracie is in school and let her look again. It was a lot to take in & John Michael wasn't the super happy baby he usually is so that was kind of tough.

Anyhow, we saw the exhibit and then went out to the sculpture/rock garden which I'm sure the kids thought was lots more fun. They played a few rounds of hide and seek and then we moved on to lunch at the Modern. It was definitely time for some food - the kiddos started fighting about who would be the "line leader" we convinced them they should take turns, but thank goodness it wasn't a long walk. The best thing about lunch was the outdoor seating. There is a large grassy area with "trees" in the distance. They are actually large sculptures, so the kiddos got to explore some more art while we were waiting for our lunch.

The oddest thing about our museum exhibit was several reactions we had to our children's behavior. Now of course, Julia & I are a bit prejudiced since they are our children, but I think overall we have very well behaved children. And when they are not well behaved, we attend to it and remove them from the situation, or try and resolve the problem. Well, apparently at the Kimball a docent gave Julia a hard time about John Michael trying out his voice. (He likes to kind of sing/shriek). Mind you, there were many other babies at the exhibit & John Michael wasn't being that loud. She ended up leaving the exhibit area & when we asked two other museum employees if there was a problem with children, both assured us there was not & looked perplexed as to why there would be a problem. The second odd thing happened at the Modern Museum. The three big kids (Alex, Clara and Gracie) were sitting on a bench which was super wide (4 feet?). Clara decided to lie down on the bench & had her feet on it. I was just getting ready to tell her to sit up when a docent came over. She didn't actually say anything to me, but nodded her head when I told Clara that we didn't need to have our feet on a place that people sit. Then she proceeded to stand about 2 feet away from the bench & watch the kids. Never mind that at the next bench a much older girl (8 - 10 year old) was lying all over a bench & being loud. Who knows why our kids seemed to be targeted that day, but it certainly didn't make you feel to welcomed. And overall, they were all very good at the museums!

Anyhow, we had a grand time looking at the art. But the best time of all was had at the Modern playing in the outdoor sculpture. Check out the video below, it will give you a taste of what they did for probably 20 minutes or so!