Children's Museum Free Night

All of you Chicagoans can say what you want about Indianapolis, (no pro baseball team, no "signature" food, inhabited by Hooisers (AKA-Hicks) but one thing that we have is a really great Children's Museum. Having never been to the Chicago Children's Museum, I can't compare, but if you are ever in Indy and have kids (even if you don't...I went for the first time with Shawn in college!), you should visit it.

Once a month, they have a free family night (thanks, Target!) from 4-8. I have found that if you get there right at 4, you can get a couple good hours in before the crowd gets heavy. We should just get a family membership, which pays for itself after 2 or 3 visits, but it's just the extra $ upfront that isn't always available. Shawn had late meeting, so I decided to take the kids because they have a cool slide that goes from the second floor down to the first during the holiday season. I am trying to do lots of the special Christmas activities, because the mommy guilt is making me feel bad for not taking Xavier to anything last year, since Aubrey was so tiny.

Here's what I love about the free night...it is a very "Hands Across America" group of people. It isn't as though there aren't people from different backgrounds there all of the time, but that night you really see a full range of races, nationalities, and socio-economic backgrounds. I saw a lot of people who appeared to be low in the cash area of life (which really relates to a lot of people in this economy!!) taking advantage of this night. We are not hurting, but regular admission costs of $12 for adults and $8 for kids would easily run us over 1/4 of our grocery budget for the week. I love that people were putting their families first and utilizing this great resource.

I have posted several pictures of our trip (Aubrey's first!) Xavier loved the Christmas cookie baking area, the comic book exhibit (He has a new obsession with superheroes), and dressing as a dinosaur, among many other things. It is definitely one of his favorite places to go. As he gets older, there are definitely tough questions that he asks. One of the exhibits is about kids who play important roles in history. (Ryan White, Anne Frank, Ruby Bridges) We normally skip this, because there is so much to see and this exhibit is really meant for older kids, but he saw something that drew him in. Outside of a replica of Ruby Bridges's classroom were life-sized photos of protestors who "yelled" unkind things. Of course, Xavier wanted to know why they were yelling, and wow..is it difficult to explain segregation to a three-year old. The good thing is their attention spans are short, so he was off to look at something else while I was still figuring out how to address skin color. It is hard to think on your feet when those kinds of questions come up!!!