DIAPERLOGUE: the unremarkable adventures of a suburban prince and princess

Monday, January 05, 2009

DiaperReport: Academy of Natural Sciences

posted by Evan Jake at 6:32 PM

Sometime last month, we took a trip to Philadelphia's natural history museum with that pretentious-sounding name: The Academy of Natural Sciences. So anyone looking for a "museum" and not an "Academy" will be thoroughly confused, like my Uncle Jason was, walking around in circles.

One of the parting gifts we received from our friends in Baltimore was a family membership there. Daddy was excited about this because he had fond memories of going this museum -- pardon me, "Academy" -- as a little boy. But you'll have to excuse me because I don't think this place had changed much since then. I doubt it had been thoroughly cleaned either. And some of the food in the cafeteria looked like it had been sitting there just as long. My aunt Marjorie, uncle Jason and cousin Drew came along, too. Cousin Drew didn't seem too impressed either.

First of all, the place is not at all family friendly. Access for strollers is really inconvenient. And there is only one part of the museum that's properly designed for us little guys. That's the children's area called "Outside In." That's where we spent the majority of our time digging in sand, playing with bones and petting snakes.

The one other pretty cool part was the butterfly room. It was a special place where you can see butterflies flap around, eating leaves and drinking water. But they were hard to see a lot of the time. And again, no strollers were allowed. Not cool, because walking is for losers and grown-ups.

I didn't spend much time in the area with the dinosaur bones because I was really freaked out by the loud "growling and roaring" sounds from the pretend dinosaurs. What's the point of this, really? Do they want us little kids to think that at any moment those life-like statues could come to life and eat us? I had a similar problem with the Maryland Science Center. These dinosaur museums are going to give me a complex. Besides, is there even any scientific evidence that dinosaurs made screeching sounds like that? For all we know, they sounded like the Velvet Fog. Or maybe a crying three-year-old.

As for the rest of the animal exhibits, they looked pretty dated and grubby. All of those stuffed animals posed like they would be in the wild is also a bit strange. I have my own stuffed animals at home and I much prefer those. They are much nicer to snuggle and probably smell better, too. Plus when my stuffed animals get old and grubby looking, Mommy can just put them in the washer.

The Academy of Natural Sciences: A Stinky Diaper.

~:O

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