Three year olds + art museum = not a good time

For Father's Day this year, my husband said he wanted to go to an art museum. There's a (formerly...I'll get to that) good one in New England: the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. It has (used to have...I'll get to that) a large fun kid's room where kids can play, plus the rest of the museum is a pretty respectable art museum.

So TK thought it would be a fun mix. We'd all have some time to see at least some of the art museum, which would be fun for us grown-ups, and then we could go to the kids area and that would be fun for the boys. It's a long drive for us to get to the museum, but we hadn't been to an art museum in ages and thought this would be the best bet for us. So we made the long trek.

We bought our tickets, went in, and stopped right inside to explain to the boys about how art museums are just for looking, not for touching, but after we looked around for a little bit, we could go into a room just for them where they could touch anything they wanted.

This would have worked great, except...the kids area was CLOSED. CLOSED, I tell you! So we're in an art museum. With almost three-year-old twins. Without a stroller. And no fun area for them. Wouldn't you think when we bought tickets with two little kids that they may have mentioned that the kids area was closed for the next few weeks? Jerk ticket guy! I'm sure we could have complained and gotten our ticket price refunded and left, but as already mentioned, we'd driven quite a while to get there, and really wanted to see an art museum. So we decided to give it a go.

Yeah, not the best idea. B-man nearly touched a painting. It set off an alarm. N-man got one foot up onto a display before I grabbed him and he got yelled at by a museum guard (who didn't fool me at all. I know WE were the ones being yelled at). We were trailed all through the museum by guards.

I think we'll wait a few more years before trying to make sure our boys are properly cultured. For now, I think skee ball at Chuck E Cheese may be the extent of culture our boys get. The carny culture really isn't one we should dismiss!

Random unrelated thought, I can't resist another recipe edition:




Here I thought I was being so smart, making the dreaded bok choy on a night when I was going out for dinner. Of course I tried it, and wouldn't you know, it was incredible! Damn, that was unexpected. I was completely, though pleasantly, surprised. The only problem now is that I'm a little depressed that we got our expected CSA distribution list for the week and there's no bok choy on it. Ah well, maybe spring turnips will be my next true food love...stay tuned!

Oh, the recipe. Here it is. I didn't really make any changes, so just follow the link if you're interested. And for those of you "cooking with kids", the sauce part of this recipe is easy and fun to do with kids. Lots of measuring and dumping into a cup and stirring. Washing bok choy is pretty easy, too...just give the kids a big bowl of cold water and let them swirl the leaves around in it. It may take a couple changes of water. Plus, then there's the salad spinner, and all-time favorite with my kids! So it's a pretty good "cooking with kids" recipe. However, it would have taken a minor miracle to actually get my kids to actually eat this. Maybe you'll have more luck!