The Childrens Museum of Acadiana

Steve gets to have "Steve Days" at least once a week.

A day solely dedicated to all that is my son. I cannot clean, vacuum or launder my way through his youth on these particular days. If he wants to play Thomas all day long, well then we play trains and, let me tell you, my son has a huge imagination so there is never a dull moment in the life of Thomas and all his dramatic friends. We have donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast and something as equally delicious for lunch, holiday french toast most of the time; I gain at least ten pounds each and every Steve Day, which he doesn't mind at all.

This last Steve Day we decided to have peanut butter pancakes for breakfast and I really, really wanted to go to the Children's Museum, so I made an executive decision as chair and founder of Steve Day.
Me-So, what do you want to do today?
Steve- Nuffin
Me-Do you wanna go to the Children's Museum? It would be so much fun! (I'm saying this overly excited)
Steve- I wanna play with sidewalk chalk and color Frankie
Me-Well, lets just get dressed and see where the day takes us.
Steve-Mommy, whats that over there?
Steve has a pretty short attention span, so I was quite sure that he had forgotten his desire to color on our dog. I got him dressed pretty quickly and we went to the park and then made our way over to the Children's Museum of Acadiana.

 Steve was one happy little camper.

The Children's Museum of Acadiana is awesome, there is so much to do and it wasn't cram packed with crazy, overly stimulated children either. It had an abundance of miniature kid-sized things and all the giant bubbles you could dream of. They have a little grocery store complete with mini carts and working registers, a Kid Kondo, in which Steve served me tea and kicked me out of, a little train set, a restaurant with a little hostess stand and mini tables and even a little mop and broom, a real ambulance, a dentist area, a bubble area, and a news desk that even had a working camera and television screen you could broadcast all your kid news on. All in all, for ten bucks to get in, the Children's Museum is everything a kid wants. I'm thinking of giving up my Starbucks habit and bringing him here four times a week...maybe not. 

I almost died inside of the little grocery store, literally. I love things that are mini, they are just too cute for me to express into words so I normally do a high-pitched little, "Oh! This is so cute!" Please do not allow me around small animals either, like ducklings. I will smother them. Ducklings, kittens and puppies fall into the miniature category and I will smother, I just cant be trusted. They have these little tiny carts that are just the right size for little grocery shoppers. All the food products are labeled with a price and you can take your groceries up to the registers and ring everything in. The registers are real and because I have issues with real registers ours was beeping, a lot. The drawer wouldn't open and Steve was giving me a look. He needed his change, he had a hot date at the restaurant next door and needed to drop his groceries at the Kid Kondo before heading out.

Jeeze, this is why I'm not a cashier. 

After that whole spectacle, we went to the middle of the Museum, where there is a section specifically for younger children, there is a house that you can climb into and up the stairs. We were making faces at each other in the window and laughing when he decided to run out and bolt down to the other side. I was in the middle of running after him when I hear, "Hey, I know that kid!"

I look up and see a woman smiling at me. The very first thought that popped into my head was, "Oh God, this is one of Charlie's friends' wives and I vaguely remember her but I cant think of a name!"

I smiled and gave an overly cheerful, "Hi!"

She said, "We met at the park last week, he was wearing a sponge bob shirt."

Oh...OH right, now I remember. 

She was there when the guy threw that kids scooter. I immediately plunged into that story, I don't think she was as shocked and/or impressed as I was. 

Steve made immediate best friends with her daughter, again. They ran and ran and ran all over the place. We had a glorious imaginary lunch at the restaurant and went grocery shopping again and had more issues with the register again. We had our teeth cleaned at the dentist and Steve strapped me down into the back of the ambulance and drove me to the doctor. They broadcast all the news for the day and we, as viewers were happy with the weather report. This was all fine and dandy and everything but my eyes, were on the big money. I wanted desperately to play with the bubbles. I asked Steve at least 500 times to come and test out the bubbles, just give it a try? No, he wanted to clean his teeth one more time. What other child do you know of, that wants to go and sit in a dentist chair rather than play with a huge bubble area?

           Only mine.

I finally got him to wander over to the bubble area and he was not interested at all, he wanted to wash his hands in the water and go and play in the Kid Kondo. He even got into the giant bubble machine with his bestie, this didn't even faze him. I lingered at the bubbles and made him play with them only until I got an a picture,

Right after this picture was taken, Steve bolted. 

I love Steve days because I can give myself a break, I can take a little vacation from stresses of being an adult and mother and actually enjoy being a mother and enjoy my son. He is so smart and hilarious, its wont be long before he is out there on his own in the world. I'm only his 'Mommy' for a limited amount of time, he will only introduce himself as Steven Owver Berwin for a short period in his and my life. Soon, he will be real grocery shopping and real eating at a restaurants with someone other than me. Soon, he will no longer be my little turkey-lurkey that I can grab and smother with kisses. I'm doing all that I can to ensure Steve has an excellent childhood and if that involves no cleaning for twelve hours and not having furniture so he can ride his bike in the house, I guess Ill be doing that.

Cheers.