Yesterday afternoon I asked Angelica to come an hour early so I could take Jack and Ben to the Children’s Museum. They were both off school for Lincoln’s birthday.

I wanted to check out the two new exhibits – Unboxed and Tinkering Lab.

I loved the idea of Unboxed: Adventures in Cardboard. Everyone always jokes how kids like the cardboard box that the gifts come in better than the gifts themselves, so why not a exhibit full of cardboard boxes? It’s very clever.

Unboxed

I loved the way you could draw on, cut, break down or build up anything in the room. The possibilities were mind blowing. Jack and Ben spent a lot of time crawling in cardboard linked forts, zooming the wooden cars up and down cardboard ramps, coloring, cutting and taping.

The chalk wall in the tinkering lab.

We also checked out the Tinkering Lab. I wasn’t sure what to make of this. My first thought, which proves I’ve been married to a lawyer for some time now, was – LAWSUIT! Hammers, nails, sharp saws all open and available for kids to play with? It’s a mother’s worst nightmare. I set Ben to work on the chalkboard walls. That kept him busy for about 10 minutes while I carefully supervised Jack’s stressful hammering. But Ben wanted to hammer too! I was able to hammer lightly with his hand on the hammer, then distracted him with wood, corks and some glue. Finally I suggested we get the hell out of there.

Does this make you as nervous as it did for me?

Final Creation