Wonders of a One Year Old

It was a trip to beat the heat, that’s how it began anyway, a mere suggestion; something to do on a lazy summer day. Of course she always gets excited when we say we are going anywhere. She runs to the back door and reaches up to touch the handle. With every ounce of effort she has, she attempts to turn the knob that will lead her to freedom. Only the call from dad to bring him her shoes will bring her back from her attempt at an escape. “Cau- Cau!” she cries.
“Yes dear, we’ll go to the car. But first you need to put on your shoes,” I reply.
As we pull out of the garage she points to the radio. Mom knows it’s time to turn on the CD player; another drive, another round of toddler music.
By the time we listen to the CD once, we arrive at our destination, The Wildlife Experience. My wife being fairly new to this part of town has never been there before, myself, dozens of times on fieldtrips. It used to be a small museum/ education center with an IMAX theater, but they added a new addition onto the museum exhibiting eight different biomes of the earth that opened in May. I had to go see it, sure I wanted to preview it for the upcoming school year, but I was excited for my daughter going to her first museum.
As we approached the building, my daughter was drawn to the bronze coyotes and elk standing next to the waterfall day in and day out welcoming all of the eager children to the museum. I could see the wonder in her eyes, a spark of awe and excitement building up inside. This was just the beginning. One look at her expression and I knew we had come to the right place.
After we paid, we headed to the elevator that would take us to the new exhibits. On the way up she began to whimper as she made the connection of doctor offices and elevators. Fortunately all of that is forgotten as the doors open and the exhibit is now within sight.
The Globology exhibit begins with a giant sphere hanging in the middle of the walkway. There is seating around the edge of a darkened room. Projectors from the four corners of the room find the same target in the center. Suddenly the sphere comes to life; the planet earth hangs from the ceiling. Not really understanding the presentation of how important water is to our earth, she still is mesmerized by the giant ball that changes color. “Baw, baw,” she says as she points to the giant earth. I can only imagine what is going through her head… Wouldn’t that be fun to play with in the yard!
The presentation finished up and we move on into the rainforest exhibit. Trees surrounds us, we are in the canopy of the rainforest. To our right a monkey comes alive and warns us to keep our distance. I look at my daughter expecting her to be frightened from all of the noise but she is intently staring at the monkey with a look of wonder. I move down beside her stroller and tell her the name of the animal that was making the disturbance. “That’s a monkey. You have a little toy monkey that you play with. That’s what a monkey looks like in the rainforest,” I explain. We move on passing the colorful birds sitting in the tree tops and a waterfall that cascades down to the floor of the rainforest.
Passing through each biome brings exhilaration. We enter the savannah and she sees the life-sized replica of her favorite stuffed animal, an elephant. She points to it in amazement. “Yes sweaty, that’s an elephant,” I point-out to her. Her eyes are glued to it. Moving forward she turns and sees three lions next to the elephant. She recognizes them and becomes excited. “Those are lions. You have toy lions at home. That’s what they look like in the wild,” I describe to her.
The final biome is the coral reef. In order for my daughter to see the fish in the aquariums, I have to remove her from the stroller. I lift her up so that she is face-to-face with the fish. “Fish,” I say.
“Fi,” she echoes.
We move from aquarium to aquarium looking at the different types of sea creatures that live in the coral reef; from sea anemones to sea horses. What a rainbow of sea creatures! My daughter is pointing out each fish as she stares in wonder. When we came to the end she begins to get fidgety, so I set her down and away she goes. The first thing that goes through my mind is that she was going to pull one of the many corals off of the wall, or walk right underneath the railing and into an exhibit. In tail, I follow her back up to the elephant. She points at it and turns around and goes back to the coral reef and looks up at the giant great white shark that is hanging from the ceiling. “What’s that?” she questions.
“A shark,” I reply. “Do you see him chasing those fish?”
With that, it’s back up the ramp and this time she stops at the lions and looks. With mom waiting at the cave entrance, we go back and forth from shark to lions, shark to elephant. With time running out, I redirect her to the caves. One look and she takes off. What is it that caught her attention? The waterfall, next to the cave exhibit is the floor of the rainforest where the waterfall makes its descent. The reason she finds this so fascinating is because her favorite thing to do in the tub is play with the water as it exits the spout. I knew exactly what she was thinking when she looked at me with outstretched hands wanting me to pick her up but I dampened the moment when I told her that she could not play in the water. She didn’t give up easy; she kept leaning toward the water as we walked around it. As we continued on, I put her down, and back to the waterfall she went. She stood there taking it all in. Seeing the smile on her face as she looked up to the source of the water and then following it down to the pool below, I saw a joy in her eyes that told me that she was thrilled that she had the opportunity to come and see all of this. A look that said, “Thanks mom and dad, I have had the time of my life.” Even though she didn’t say it, I could see it in her eyes.I put her down and we followed as she took off running through the different exhibits. I could tell by the excitement on her face, she was having a blast and that this is a really cool place! Time had run out and the museum was closing. I picked her up to leave and she was not at all happy about the idea of leaving. But as she squirmed in my hands, I reassured her that we would soon return.