Carnegie Museum Trip

[paganmama999]

So, we vikings took a little journey to Pittsburgh today to visit the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. It was a long haul for us (about 4.5 hours), and we had to get up at 5 a.m., but it was worth it, I hope. Ro (4 y.o. DD) has been wanting to see dinosaurs for a while now, and Kel (2 y.o. DD) will go along with just about anything that changes her scenery. So, we arrived at about 11:15, rented a locker for coats and my "travel bag" for the kids, then went to get a snack (kids were peckish). Kel falls out of her chair as soon as we sit down and cries, which echoes like there are 15 babies crying instead of just the one. No serious harm was done. So, on we go to the dinosaurs. That went fine. Ro was sufficiently impressed with the T-Rexes and the Pteraldactyl (with a 37 ft. wingspan!), so we go up to the Natural History Animals Exhibit, which is basically a huge taxidermy show. The girls were a little freaked out! There was a diorama of a man on a camel getting attacked by lions, and one of the lions had it's claws in the camels side and the other was laying dead on the ground. Kel's lip stuck out and she just pointed at the lion laying there. Dh had to tell her it wasn't real, but she's two! If she can see it, to her it's real! Then Rowan walked right into the glass at the giraffe exhibit! She kind of bounced off of it and looked at me like WTF...That was kind of funny! That was some really clean glass! Then we went to see the Egyptoloy Exhibit. We explained about the pyramids, the gods, the pharoahs, the canopic jars, etc., which didn't phase Ro at all, but when we got to the the hall of architecture, and was explaining about the Greek tombs, she turns to me and says "Is museums about nothing but dead people?" Which made everyone laugh! Then, we made the mistake of taking them to the Hall of Statues. Let me just say that my 2 y.o. is going through a phase. She loves to be naked. LOVES it. And she likes it when other people are naked (she considers you naked even if you're in your underwear)! Well, the Hall of Statues is a tall, wide hall made of nothing but marble. Marble  walls, marble floor, marble steps leading up to the second level. Marble creates an echo like you wouldn't believe! And when Kel got an eyeful of all that naked statuary, well, you should have seen the look on her face!  So she yells "They're naked!" And, of course, with the echo, everyone on the first and second floors heard it! And she just laughed and pointed and clapped! I just kind of ducked behind one of the statues, but DH was carrying her, so he turned beet-red! And that's not the end of the story! On the way out, there was a statue of a Greek or Roman hero wearing only, you guessed it, a fig leaf. And just when we thought we had everything under control, we walk by that statue, and Kellan looks over DH's should and says, loudly, "I see butt!"  I could have just about died! It just struck me so funny! When we went to see the art, whenever we would come to a painting depicting any degree of nudity, DH put his hand over her mouth!

So, our trip was amusuing, and we're glad we went, even though the drive home seemed interminable!  Ro got a little education out of it, and Kel got to see a lot of naked people!  : )

[saltycoqui]

Mar. 20, 2009 at 11:38 PM

Oh thanks for sharing this story! I love going to the museum with my kids! We love dinosaurs too. But the naked and fake people never seemed to phase them. Well I started taking mine when they were like over five years old but the really little ones are so funny!