The Met

P was unusually excited (a few weeks ago - so behind, so very behind!) to visit the roof of the Met, after hearing Aunt Alicia describe the gorgeous sculpture gracing the top floor, and thus we had a field trip....

As the museum has an anti-scooter stance, and schlepping the child throughout the monstrosity would do me in, I pulled the stroller out of storage... and the Little Man's eyes shown bright. He happily slumped into said stroller, getting so comfy he felt no need to un-sit for the stairs to the subway. Which reminded me of why the damn thing had gone into storage in the first place...

The Little Man has never been that into the Met. Perhaps he feels my focus pulled ever so slightly away (all of that Art!!!) Maybe its the size... I dunno. He loves it for a bit and then he's just done. This time, we were there all afternoon. And happily so.

Look at that temple!!!



We landed a kid's map upon arrival, which is brilliance in a paper package. He kept this prize in his hot little hand alllll afternoon:)



It marks the museum by major artworks, giving P the upper-hand in direction decision making. He could pick and point to whatever struck his fancy, and then search for landmarks as we wandered. Fun and amazingly productive for his little brain. I was flabbergasted by the sheer brilliance of the game we had fallen into. (We've manufactured a less brilliant, watered down version at home before, but this was amazing! Typically, we draw a map of our house, hide P's treasure chest, mark the map with a pin and let BB try and find the treasure. Its always a good challenge for BB, since P has started to purposefully put the pin in the wrong location. Otherwise, its just too easy for the poor pink monster to complete his task :) This was treasure hunting on a grand scale with a detailed map. He was solidifying his understanding of directions, translating two dimensional images into the three D world; map reading skills were blooming, synapses were firing, fun was occurring :) So, the day went something like this: "There's the big cat! Ok, Mama, go that way, on to the sarcophagus! Oh! There's the sarcophagus, turn left! No, right! Yes! Turn! No, not now! Turn, yes! Now go until I see the, yes, there it is!"

Needless to say, a lot of tourists got a good chuckle that day:)

Two of P's favorites below. He spend an enormous amount of time wandering and wondering about the armor area. His most burning questions: What if they needed to scratch their noses? What if they needed to go potty?



His main question here was if he could climb the darn thing. (duh:) He actually had me ask a guard. The guy then made P's day by telling him he should try it in October, when its not so hot so he doesn't burn his hands. You can bet its on P's calender....


We left (before P was even requesting an exit) to meet E for dinner. Jumping a bus heading south with crazy lucky timing left us with a while to ramble through Central Park. And, as it always is with that park, it was lovely moment after lovely moment. First, the jazz band that thrilled P, then the fiddler, swaying in front of a perfect climbing rock. What? Combine a violin (really, really beautifully played too, double stops to beat the band, gorgeous stuff!) and a rock and the kid is in heaven :)

P, peeking at the master taking a break:



Days like this really remind me how much I love life learning!