Please Touch Museum

We recently became members of the new Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia.  It is a children's museum created specially for little ones under the age of seven.  The museum moved from its (tiny!) location downtown, to Memorial Hall (a Victorian-age building which was built to be the art gallery for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition of the World's Fair and the original home of the Philadelphia Museum of Art) in Fairmont Park at the end of last year.  The building is absolutely beautiful...and it is filled with such amazing exhibits and play spaces!  There is an area for water play, a vehicle-themed area, a space area, a miniature grocery store, a (CHOP-sponsored) children's hospital, an area based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...and so much more!  It is such a cool place!

We have made three trips in the past three weeks.  Jeff and I took the kids for our first trip...we went with Amy, Abby and Jax LaRussa (our friends who recently moved to Allentown...and who we miss A LOT!) for our second trip (which, unfortunately, I got no good photos of, because it was my first time as the lone chaperone of Avery and Noel, and I was a little too overwhelmed for photography)...and we went with Amy and Logan Hatton (our friendly neighbors) this past Monday.  We also, coincidentally, ran into one of Avery's best buddies, Noelle, on two of our three trips!  

Here are some photos from our visits...

Great Hall

Water Works

Please Touch Garage

Alice's Adventures

Train Station

ShopRite Supermarket

Shoe Store

McDonald's

Front Step

Rainforest Rhythm

Dentzel Carousel

Doesn't it look awesome?  Avery and Noel have had so much fun there.  They have been pretty good during our visits, too...

Three trips and only two meltdowns...both of which were courtesy of Miss Avery Lane.  I think on each visit I stayed about an hour too long for them.  Noel just got whiney during that torturous final hour.  Avery, on the other hand, threw two pretty good fits.  One time, she got unreasonably upset after being shoved (by a renegade diaper bag) into a metal railing while trying to board the carousel.  It hurt, I'm sure, but not to the extent she was letting on ("I bumped my head!  I can't walk!  I think there's blood!").  The nice carousel operator let her talk into her (ON!) microphone, and, suddenly, all hurts were healed.  The other time, we left the museum with Avery wailing, "I want burritos!  But, I want bur-ri-tos!"  I'm not sure what that was all about...

AND, three trips and only one lost child!  Ironically, the "losing" occurred when Jeff and I were both there.  Technically, Avery was following the rules.  We told her to stay where she could see us...and she did.  Unfortunately, "where she could see us" just so happened to be underneath a loaded coat rack.  Revised rule:  Stay where you can see us and NO HIDING!

All in all, the museum has been a HUGE hit with the Klick clan.  I'm so excited to have that space as an escape from the rest of the winter cold...AND the spring rain and summer heat yet to come.  It's a happy place...unless you bump your head or really need a burrito, apparently...