It all comes down to food

We went to the museum this morning since the weather has been pretty cruddy this week and Lucy needed to burn some energy. We tried to hit every exhibit, at least for a few minutes, and even some that we hadn't been to in a long time, to maximize our indoor walking space. As a toddler, there were several exhibits we didn't bother visiting because they would not hold her attention, like the gazillion Butterflies and moths pinned on the wall or looking at meteors in the Space Odyssey, but today she was very interested to at least see what they all had to offer.

Even though the Gems & Minerals exhibit was fairly dark and looked like the shaft of a mine, Lucy was still pretty keen on seeing what was inside. It was very fun for me to see how much she was willing to listen and learn about what we were looking at. And at the risk of tooting my own horn, I must say that I was also somewhat impressed with my own ability to quickly read the descriptions and explanations and then translate them into words on her level. It was challenging and fun, and I could tell she was absorbing new information like a sponge.

She said two things that really stuck with me and made me chuckle to myself. The first was when we were looking at rhodochrosite, the pinkish-redish crystals that grow with some varieties of quartz in big blocks or cubes. I asked her if she thought they were pretty, and she said, "They are pretty! They look kind of like chopped tomatoes! I like tomatoes!"

Then we were looking down into a well-lighted boulder of quartz and seeing how it sparkled, and I said something like, "You see how this big rock is hollow and the pretty crystals grow on the inside?" She replied, "Yeah, it's hollow like our milk chocolate cow that we got for Easter!"

Somehow it all comes down to food! But I was still pleased that she was making these new observations and was in some small way able to relate the new sights to familiar things in her own little life. It was a very pleasant day at the museum and we left satisfied... and hungry.