Quadrangling Up a Good Time

Hey. Nate here. This was Mother's Day weekend, but in our house, you'd have thought Saturday was National Kids Day, the way Mom and Dad treated me. We started the day on the McDonald's playscape, where I went down the big, dark, twisty slide for the first time ever, and then six more times after that, yelling "I did it!" upon each landing, which Dad said sounded way too much like someone named "Dora" who has a TV show I'm not allowed to watch. And we ended the day with a visit to the neighbors' rented bounce house and an evening ice cream outing (I had a bowl of soft-serve twist). But the easy highlight of the day was our mid-morning visit to the Springfield Museums -- a first for both me and Dad, although Mom had been there years ago. Color me impressed. Let me tell you, Springfield is no one-horse town. Or one-dinosaur, for that matter. Some highlights:

 

We started in the Dr. Seuss sculpture garden in the center of the courtyard between the four museums (an area known informally as the Quadrangle). The sculptures were built in 2002, which, by the looks of it, is a really long time for the Grinch to stand there without being allowed a restroom break. I think his even poor, abused dog feels kind of bad for him. He should really wear diapers. That works for me. And road-tripping astronauts.

Sure, I like to carry around books, but that doesn't mean I actually know how to read. Duh.

OK, now we're in business. The Springfield Science Museum had a temporary exhibit (it's ended now) called Life Through Time, which turned out to be a roomful of animatronic dinosaurs doing dinosaur things, like hatching babies, exchanging threatening looks, discussing the latest odds of the asteroid actually nailing the Yucatan, and roaring. Especially roaring. Let me tell you, I spent the morning repeating "see dinosaurs? see dinosaurs?" about 600 times, and after about 10 seconds actually seeing them, I was ready to move on to the neighboring astronomy room, because the planets suspended from the ceiling don't roar. But after being chauffered around by Mom for a few minutes...

...I figured I was brave enough to face this dangerous reptilian kingdom on my own, which eventually involved lots of running, pointing, and shouting "dinosaurs! dinosaurs! dinosaurs! dinosaurs!" as if Mom and Dad had forgotten what room we were in. My favorite display wasn't a dinosaur at all, though, but a couple of sabre-toothed tigers, which Dad helpfully called "big kitties," apparently not aware that, while "kitties" might constrict his allergy-cursed throat, "sabre-tooth tigers" will gleefully rip it out. Nice attempt at early education there. Can you believe I spend a few days a week at home with this guy? I swear, I'm going to wind up like that woman on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader? who was asked "which continent is also a country?" and said, "um, all of them?"

Hey, look, a dog bed, just like Mavi's at home! Oh, wait ... it's kind of hard. Actually, this is supposed to be a dinosaur footprint, but something tells me it's just a recreation of one. Because museums don't normally let 2-year-olds climb around in actual fossils. Still, this display was an authentic model of organic scientific wonder compared with...

...the Solutia Eco-Center. That's right, the Solutia Eco-Center. Which is kind of like christening an aircraft carrier the USS Cindy Sheehan. Turns out the name wasn't all that odd, though, considering that the exhibit features enclosure after enclosure of life-size nature dioramas populated amost entirely with fake animals. Living critters? Um, we saw two turtles and two fish, one of which Dad identified as the "three-eyed monsanto,"  yet another stepping stone on my way to not getting into the right college. Down the hall, we came across a bunch of older kids dressed in white outfits working on some kind of school project. Scrubbing chemicals off birds, probably.

Turns out Dr. Seuss made similar observations about Springfield in his day, modeling the polluting factory behind Dad after an actual plant not far from his childhood home. Once we left the Science Museum and headed into Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, however, I was less interested in the mural work than the tea party they had set up for me. Mom stepped out to look at the displays of old Indian Motorcycle products while I poured imaginary tea for myself (I'm kind of selfish with my imaginary tea), but she did return in time to capture this tender father-son moment. I'm surprised the chair didn't break, Dad. I'll bet you climb on sculptures, too.

Speaking of which, Mom and Dad tried to take me into the George Walker Vincent Smith Art Museum, but everything was too high off the ground or glass-encased to physically threaten, so what fun is that? And I was really tired by this time, so I left the naked statues in peace. You know, these dudes have surely been around way longer than the Seuss sculptures, yet somehow, they maintain their patient dignity. Methinks the Grinch could learn something.