And Then I Stepped in Gum . . .

Spent the day in the City with both kids and some friends who also have a 5- and a 1-year-old. We decided to take Karina and Katie, best friends, in to see the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History. Dave wasn't able to join us, since he had advising meetings, but we managed pretty well regardless. The kids were all very good, despite the lack of regular naps, and I think Katie really enjoyed the dinosaur and Exploratorium exhibits.

Am I a bad intellectual if I admit that dinosaurs really do nothing for me? I mean, once you get your head around the concept that there actually *were* dinosaurs, and they existed an inconceivably long time ago, the rest of the exhibit is pretty much just one pile of bones after another. In fact, the whole AMNH is really not my cup of tea. Yet the membership we bought keeps bringing us back because -- hey, it's free! -- and Dave, the science geek, really likes the place. I'm not crazy about stuffed animals (i.e., of the taxidermy persuasion), the exhibits really don't exemplify the latest and greatest trends in modern museumology (very few interactive exhibits; lots of staged tableaus), and the place is huuuuuuge, which means you have to go through the hall of ichthyosaurs and related mammals (I'm making that up, but you get the picture), through the Hall of Biodiversity (not making that one up), and through the Teddy Roosevelt memorial to get to the space center that you really wanted to see (and then you can't find an elevator to take you to the main exhibit floor, but that's another story).

I do like the minerals and gems exhibits -- Mrs. Hayward, who taught 8th grade Earth Science would be so proud of all that I remember about rocks -- and I like IMAX movies. But that's about as far as I can enthuse about "natural history," and I feel bad that I couldn't even really muster up a whole lot of enthusiasm to share with Katie. Ah, well, I guess that's why she has two parents -- we'll have to go back one more time before our membership is up this month so that she and Dave can swoon over the science stuff together.

As for me, give me the Smithsonian Museum of American History in DC any day. Social history -- that's what I like. Stories about people's lives from another time are the things that float *my* boat. With luck, I can stir up a penchant for that type of thing in Katie and Ian, too. Hmm, maybe it's time to start planning our trip to Baltimore and DC...

posted by Jennifer Morgan, at 9:12 PM