The Tucson Children's Museum

During our vacation to Tucson, AZ we went to the Children’s Museum downtown. It definitely deserves to be written about.

We pulled into the parking spot beside a beautiful building I would normally associate with California in the Hollywood section. Pretty trees, nice landscaping and a very… California feel to it. I liked it.

However, there were two homeless folks outside the museum. I couldn’t help but wonder, if you’re homeless, why would you want to go to a children’s museum? There doesn’t seem to be any logic to that at all. It’s one thing to hang out at a bus station or someplace that’s free and warm but outside a children’s museum seems like quite a stretch.

And, not to sound like a douche or anything, but it didn’t make me feel that safe about getting out of the car. Now, I know they’re probably great people who just had a bit of bad luck and they ended up where they were, but as a Dad, like I said before, I’m a protector first.

There wasn’t much to worry about though because between the time I got out of the car and the time I got my daughter out of the car, the cops had shown up and was writing one a ticket while the other waited for his. I guess they don’t mess around there. Again, not to sound like a douche, but I was glad.

Inside, Derrick at the desk wanted to know where we were from and how old our daughter was. We had to sign in on their welcome sheet and he remarked “Georgia? That’s pretty far away.”

Indeed, Derrick. Indeed.

The first room was specifically made for little kids. The littlest of kids. Of course, you may not want to bring your babies there, but if you kid can walk around and pick stuff up, they’ll probably have a good time in the room. It was designed like a rainforest with a Mayan temple you could build in the corner from lightweight foam block and once the temple was built the pressure of the blocks would press two buttons on the wall and red lights would flash on the temple. It was pretty cool.

There was a small slide that was what skateboards call a pyramid, where you have an incline that you climb and then a flat surface and THEN the slide down. Below the flat part at the top, there was a scene of plants and large plastic insects that you could see through plexi-glass. Annie wasn’t so interested in this though. She wasn’t really interested in anything that the museum wanted her to be interested in when it came to this room. She was content to stand in the middle and just stare at everything. I’d climb in some foam block builder things and try to coax her in but she wasn’t having it. She just wanted to stare.

And then these kids came in, kids way too old for the room, and started terrorizing the place. It was the kind of situation where you felt bad for the things in the room, inanimate things. Their parents were there on the sidelines saying “now Johnny, don’t do that,” but they said it without feeling and you could tell they weren’t really interested.

I hate parents like that. You should be interested and willing to put some feeling into everything you do for your kid, even if you’re disciplining them. ESPECIALLY if you’re disciplining them. If you need to be like “Hey! Johnny, you do that one more time and we’re going to go someplace with video surveillance!” even if it’s an empty threat, you do that. Go ahead. Unless you’re literally BEATING your kid they need to be kept in line when you’re out so do what you need to do. Just don’t break the law. And for god’s sake, watch out for little kids. I may be a protector but I can’t be right next to my daughter all the time and I swear to god if your nine-year-old who’s playing in the 2-and-below room runs into and hurts my kid, him and I are going to have words and if you want to join in, feel free. I seriously doubt there’s going to be much of a nice guy in that situation.

The next room was the train room, and man oh man, Annie loves trains. She loved this room too. There was a giant train in the middle of the room that had a giant tube running through it and Annie was happy as all get-out walking back and forth through the tube. I think if I made a similar thing for her room I’d never see her because she’d be walking all day.

She’d be wicked fit though.

Next up was the health room which was a weird room that had doctor’s coats, this cool drum that was connected to a handprint. You put your hand on the handprint and the drum beat out your heartbeat. It was awesome. But there was all sorts of weird stuff like a large Operation game. The thing was about the size of Annie. There was also a grocery store in there and Annie grabbed a shopping cart and started throwing stuff in it and then taking stuff out and then throwing it back in.

And these OTHER kids came in with the same kind of inattentive parents and this little brat walked right up to Annie, emptied out the cart and took it away. Instinct said grab the kid by the hair, move him and take the cart back, but I restrained. Surely his parents would discipline him for taking something that someone else was using but THEY were too busy playing Dance Dance Revolution (seriously). Good job parents.

Anyway, Kim was on me about talking too loud when I mentioned that it’s CRAZY THAT YOU CAN’T GO OUT WITHOUT SOME FREAKING BRAT TAKING SOMETHING THAT SOMEONE ELSE WAS USING and that kind of stuff. She shut me up pretty quick, but I was pissed. I mean, Annie wasn’t bugging anyone, she’s small as can be and here’s this little kid that you just KNOW is going to grow up to be a douche taking stuff from her. I wanted to tell her and have her understand that this is the kind of guy she’s going to see all her life and she is never to date them. Ever. But she’s not even two, so I’ll have to wait.

Next up was the dinosaur room. I’m a HUGE fan of dinosaurs, have been since I was a kid and I’m always interested in seeing them. If a movie has them in it, I’ll watch it. If a museum has a display, I’ll go to it. I’ll go by myself if I have to. I don’t mind. This room had dinos that looked real and more importantly, they looked like they could move. There was a fence between you and them, but you could tell by the joints that they could indeed move.

Now, when I was a kid and went to a similar museum, they had a holograph of a T Rex skull that looked like it was about five feet long and it was looking right at you. Of course it was flat but as I got closer I started getting a little nervous and greatly excited and my freaking mom grabbed me and shocked the hell out of me leaving me struggling for breath. Ever since then, if a dinosaur looks like it can move, I approach with caution and an ever present eye to the peripherals.

And they did indeed move. They didn’t move nearly as much as I thought they would but they DID move and it was fun to watch. Annie enjoyed it.

Yet, again, even MORE annoying kids came in and tried to ruin it. They went right up to the fence blocking the view, their parents were trying to take pictures of them and the kids were even leaning over the fence grabbing a T Rex’s teeth and all without any yelling ro warning. Look, I know this blog is coming off like I think kids should be heavily disciplined. I don’t. I think they should be disciplined accordingly, that’s all. And some freaking kid trying to climb into a dinosaur’s mouth is how things get broken, more visually intrusive fences go up and the distance between you and them gets bigger and bigger and less fun.

Don’t let your kid be the douche that is responsible for this.

The funny thing that happened though was one kid was trying to grab a tooth in the T Rex’s mouth and his sister says AND I QUOTE: “He’s going to eat you!”

And Andrew (his real name. Screw the innocent) said “I like being eaten!”

I thought that was funny.

It was a great trip altogether though. I had a blast and Annie enjoyed it too.