Family Museum

Thursday nights can be tough because more often than not Karl has to preach at church or has a meeting or something that takes him away from us.  Tonight, rather than stay home and go to the park or play around home, we made a trek over to the Family Museum in Bettendorf. We're members of the museum so we're there probably once a week or so, but Thursday nights are my favorite.  There tend to be fewer people there, so I let June and Ruben have a little more space to run. Also, evenings are just great times for both kids.  As long as June is moving she's past the whininess of the morning.  Ruben caught a cat nap on the way over in the van so he was raring to go as well.

Tonight, June particularly enjoyed playing in the store.  She sat at the cash register, said, "I be the teacher," and checked out items as i brought them to her.  The check out process was quite complicated because she had to turn each box over and stick it to the bottom of the cash register.  After my items were checked out she would give me change.  I tried to explain that I need to pay her before she can give me change, but seriously, the change part was way more exciting.  By 6 pm the little general store was in shambles from hours of fun with lots of kids, so I spent a lot of time reorganizing all the fruits, vegetables, boxes of cereal, and cans of food.  We even went so far as to search out food in other parts of the museum and bring it back to the store where it belonged.  Every once and a while it is nice to clean a space that is not my own.  Plus it felt good to leave the store nicer than we found it for the very nice older ladies who work there at night.  It is probably also good to reinforce with June the importance of cleaning up our messes.  That is one of our goals for the week.

As always, we made a stop at the stage and music section of the museum for some dress up and dancing.   Her favorite song is "I like to move it," a 1994 track from Reel to Real. Her moves are spectacular! There is a curtain with a large mirror behind it on a little stage. June goes behind the curtain and then emerges with her dance face on shaking her little groove thing.

Amazingly, Ruben just follows us wherever we go and finds a new piece of furniture to pull up on. I can't believe he's not walking yet. I'm sure it is mostly lack of knowledge and not lack of nerves or muscles. I have to say I haven't encouraged him to walk by letting him walk holding my fingers. I think if I let him do that for a few days he'd figure out that the world is more exciting from an erect position, but for now we'll let him think that crawling is the bee's knees.

All in all, it was a really fun evening with just the kids and Mom, but as we were driving home, June was sure to comment on how much she loved her daddy. In fact, right now it is Karl who is sitting outside June's room as she falls slowly asleep and not Mom, because when it comes to bedtime, Dad just does it better.