Family Fun Series-Cincinnati Museum Center

Fun For the Family

A lot of people really complain about Cincinnati. They say there's not much to do. Nowhere to go. Yahta, yahta. I must say, I really disagree. While I've always loved it here, raising a child here as been a really great experience. I think it's a very family friendly city. Phil and I love it so much, in fact, that we've gone a little crazy with purchasing memberships that allow us to have unlimited visits at the aquarium, children's museum, and zoo. This is all in addition to the wonderful children's bookstore, toy store, and library all within walking distance from our house. I thought I'd give tidbits of our experiences at these places. For today, I'll just focus on the children's museum.

 

The Cincinnati Museum Center is our current favorite. We just picked up our passes last week and plan on going every Saturday throughout the spring. The museum center is a gorgeous 1930's building that houses a natural science museum, children's museum, and Cincinnati history museum. There's also a historical library. The children's museum is a ton of fun. There's a 4 and under area with sand play, puppets, climbing apparatus, slides, wheel barrels, ride on toys, Legos, puzzles.....you get the picture. Our first two visits we never made it out of this area since it held Noelles attention so well. Today, however, we decide to branch out to the rest of the museum. They have an entire little town complete with a play kitchen, diner, baby care area, veterinary clinic, doctors office, grocery store....and I'm probably forgetting others. Noelle was apprehensive at first but eventually found the baby doll area which didn't have too many children. She loved it. She's just now getting into baby dolls. She liked to take them all out of the crib and hug them. Eventually she started trying to sit the babies on the chair and push them up to the little table but the chairs kept getting stuck when she tried to push them in. She was getting so frustrated, so I went and grabbed a doll high chair that. Saw earlier in a different area and brought it to her. Her face lit up when she could put the doll in the "right" equipment. She's not super into feeding or changing the dolls yet, but I think that's just around the corner.

Next, she ventured over to the construction site. What a neat area. It is strewn with rubber "rocks" that you can shovel into wheel barrels. The main attraction is the crane. You can load a big red soft sided container with all the "rocks" and the child operating the crane can steer and dump it. It's definitely not intended for 15 month olds and eventually I had to guide Noelle away because there were so many older children that she was in danger of getting trampled. She also kept trying to get in on their wheel barrow action, which some of the older children did not appreciate. She did however love it and I bet if we were there during a week day shed be able to explore even more.

We finished out the visit with lunch at the museum food court. She had an hour or two of vigorous play and completely conked out on the way home.

I didn't get too many pictures because I was having so much fun watching and playing with her that I kept forgetting. We will go back plenty more times though, so I'm not too worried. I did capture this one in the baby play area.

 

 

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15 months!

Noelle turned 15 months today! Well, I guess if you want to be super technical, she will turn 15 months in 4 hours since she was born at 10:50 pm.

I thought I would break this down by developmental area, since that is how we view the world in early intervention. It's easier for me to remember things that way.

Cognitive: she is making all sorts of associations now. She walks over to the drawer where we keep her hat after we put her jacket on and points to her head. She can put round shapes into a shape sorter. Being able to get the square in isn't too far off. She loves to really inspect how things work.

Adaptive/self help: she finger feeds herself very well. She can use a spoon to feed herself yogurt and applesauce. She likes to practice with the fork and understands that it is supposed to pierce the food, but can't quite get it yet. She helps dress herself by pushing her arms through the sleeve. She tries to put her diaper on. She can successfully take her diaper off, including ones with snaps.....yikes! So not ready for that. She sleeps from 7:30/8:30-6/6:30 and has been taking one giant 3 hour nap. The time of the nap varies a bunch.

Communication: Noelle says mom or mama and dada. She also says cat (her favorite!), dog, more, cup, milk, ga for grandma, car, sock, and has attempted cracker and banana once. She signs milk, more, all done, eat, sleep, horse, and I think she signed fish once also. She waves hi and bye. She understands everything. She walks over to the shoe cabinet if you ask her where her shoes are. She goes over to her high chair when you say "time to eat." She looks at family members when named.

Motor: She has been walking since she was 11 months. She can walk very quickly. You can almost call it a run, but not quite. She climbs onto anything about 18 inches off the floor. She is pretty short so she can't climb up on the couch yet, but has the skills to,do it if it weren't for her height. She uses a neat pincher grasp. She can grasp a crayon and scribble.

Personal-social: last but certainly not least is personal social. She smiles and laughs. Gives the best hugs and kisses. She loves to try to sit in the lap of older little girls, including strangers at story time. It's hilarious.

She is moving into mostly 12-18 month clothes, but still wears some 9-12.

That's Noelle in a nut shell at 15 months. Her well check is next week and I will find out her height and weight then!

 

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