The Crowne Family Play Lab

Yesterday (Leap Day, for anyone interested!) AJ and I went to the Filed Museum with our friends, the Payne's (see link to their blog at right) and visited the new Crown Family Play Lab. It was great! We had a blast and will definitely head back whenever we can get the free museum pass from the library. It has 4 or 5 different play "zones" and AJ liked exploring them all. Here he is crawling through a log tunnel at the forest zone...suspiciously similar to the top shot in our Gymboree blog! In this zone he also felt tree bark, found a chipmunk and a bullfrog and pushed buttons that made them light up and make sounds.


Then we went into the sound-proof music room. Very cool! Inside were instruments from around the world...several types and shapes of drums and other interesting percussion instruments. One instrument was an mbira, also called a "thumb piano". It is a Zimbabwean instrument consisting of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. We have one at home, but the one at the Play Lab sounded much prettier!! Everything is set up so that kids AJ's size can reach it all, and he had a great time banging and clanging.

The next area we visited was the Pueblo home. AJ and his friend Jack loved filling a basket with pretend corn and then emptying it into a coil cooking pot and then doing it over again. It was so cute to watch them "cook" together! Jack's sister Violet is wearing the purple dress in the background and she was very busy climbing around the Pueblo while the boy worked in the kitchen, a refreshing role reversal! They loved looking into the cooking pot, and Jack's feet looked like they were getting pretty warm on those glowing red coals...

After the museum, we went to lunch near home at a place called Vella Cafe. It's right under the train stop where Andy rides to work each day. The kids all behaved very well considering they were nearing naptime by then. I think AJ swiped a big chunk of Jack's sandwich, but they were very cute sitting next to each other in their high chairs. It was a fun outing and AJ crashed hard when we got home. I should have taken a nap myself, but I think I posted the previous blog instead...hmmm! Where are my priorities??