Portland Children's Museum

On our last day in Portland, Manny was working, so Ela and I decided to take the kids to the Portland Childrens Museum. We met at the house and hung around for a while, then we took Ela's car to the museum. I'm not sure why everything takes longer with kids, it just does. Besides, our family has a thing about hanging around chatting. We find it just as enjoyable as other activities.

Anyway, we got there and made Zorah and Isabel take a picture by the deconstructed cow. I think if they didn't want kids to climb on it, they probably should have encased it in lucite or glass. More effective than the "Please Do Not Climb" sign.

The first place we seriously investigated was the stage, which had a xylophone and other musical instruments, and costumes. Since there were no princess outfits, Zorah quickly gravitated to the xylophone, and Isabel followed. For some reason this irritated Zorah. I think she's used to having things to herself at childrens museums. We usually go to the one in Vegas on weekdays when there's no one else there, so she gets to fiddle with things as much as she wants with little interference. Since she wasn't sharing well, we temporarily separated from Ela, Isabel, and Celia.



This museum has a lot of places to explore because it is distributed through hallways and rooms. It's not just a big open space with different exhibits. We were surprised when we went down one hallway, ran into and open space at the corner of the building, and found this reading tree. Zorah sat down under the stairs into the treehouse and read a book. Do all kids love little nooks? I think so.

The reading time seemed to settle Zorah down a bit, so we rejoined Ela and, after a snack, went to the Bob the Builder exhibit, which was very cute. Something about round figures with little black dots for eyes. They had a cool section where you complete a stone wall with these magnetic stones. If I remember right, they were styrofoam or light plastic "stones" with just a strip of magnet stuck to the back.

Just pick one up and stick it on the wall. Fortunately they were good about sharing here.

It was getting late, and the museum may even have been closing, so we left.