The Magic House

Since last weekend was a long weekend, I decided to take Zander to The Magic House - St. Louis Children's Museum. They recently just finished a huge renovation and now it seriously reminds me of Rose Red - its like this house just keeps building onto itself. I was afraid we would get lost in it.(this is their picture, not mine)

We spent our time in the section that catered to kids from 1-6. He had a really good time although he kept wanting to do things that was for bigger kids.....so either he got scared...or he was scaring me.

They had a whole village: with a store where you could pick out groceries, weigh the food and pay for it (all fake), a pizza parlor, a house, a treehouse, a NASCAR pit where you could work on a car, a fishing hole where you could catch a magnetic fish and "release" it upstream and watch it "swim" back downstream back to the pond, a utility company and so much more.

There was no way we could cover it all. It was almost overwhelming for him I think. At first he did really well and was playing with different things. But after awhile....he would just run from one thing to another without barely stopping. He kept wanting to go up and down the steps that led to the treehouse....and they were pretty steep wooden steps...about 20 of them. I had visions of him rolling down them but couldn't keep him off of them without tackling him to the ground. We called it quits when he ran into the grocery store...grabbed a bottle of Hershey's Syrup....ran from the store without even fake paying....and threw the bottle at some man as he ran past him - all the while laughing like The Joker. Yes, someone was tired and slap-happy.

Way overstimulated.

I chased him around some more and finally caught him down where the different branches of our government were - I actually did kind of have to tackle him to the ground in the Oval Office. I would have loved to get a picture of him sitting at the big desk.....but he wouldn't have sat for anything at that point.

So, I had to carry him out while he was fussing.....but he fell asleep in the car.

Here are some of the pictures I managed to take during our many chases....

Here he is with some of the biggest legos I've seen.

This is the look of fear!!!! He wanted to go down this slide. There was a guy at the top that helped him down (you can see he is still holding onto Zander). I snapped a quick pic and then had to go help him down the rest of the way.



Here he is learning his ABC's

This piano was inside the kitchen/dining area they had set up. He loves the piano. Do you think I should tell him that we have one....in our living room....right now? I haven't shown him yet that the lid lifts up to reveal the keys.....hahahaha

These are quick shots to show how he would see something and then how quickly his attention was on something else....

This was a big sand box....although I guess not really a sandbox because they couldn't sit in it.

Chef Z loved playing in the kitchen...that was right up his alley.

Here he is trying to get a tire off the car

Here he is driving a delivery truck and then playing in the back of the truck.

Lots of things to see

I was on the other side of the fish tank and took this picture....



I kept trying to get him to look up at me....but he wouldn't.
Do you want to know why?

Because he was busy looking at a piece of candy that he then stuck in his mouth....and I had to race around the tank to get the nasty thing out.

YUCK!