OMG I would have LOVED to go there with a group that age. But yeah, it is exhausting.

They were suitably awed. Although some of them were scared at the big dinosaur exhibits. (My daughter: "that's a stegosaurus!" Nerd.)

I love how your daughter knows dinosaur names already! :)

When I was last there, there was a 5 year oldish boy totally wide eyed at the dinosaurs. He ran up to one and asked his mom, "What's this one?" She looked bored and said, "A big one?" And I was like, How hard is it to read a sign and teach your kid something, or to at least make up something more creative?

I finally went there for the first time 3 years ago. After reading Roy Chapman Andrews' All About Dinosaurs as a kid. (Yeah Andrews was a prick but he's a product of his time.)

The day we'd scheduled it, I was like a kid. Vicki had other things she wanted to do first (like get some food in her) and I was very impatient to finally GET there.

Very worth it.

I still haven't been to the Natural History Museum yet. *sheepish*

That museum is one reason I became a museum professional. What really did it was a behind-the-scenes experience in the bird collection. It's amazing how it's an active research institution as well as a phenomenal public resource. The blue whale skeleton alone has probably been responsible for creating tons of biologists, conservationists, and other museum folks. People rhapsodize about the place!

And yeah, I often find it hard to describe to people why teaching is so hard. I used to teach K, 1, and 2 when I was in my early 20s. People often think "Hey, you get summers off, your workday ends early, kids are cute, must be awesome!" IT's really difficult to express the unique kind of exhaustion that results from focusing on, tracking, interacting and managing kids all day - let alone doing the analysis of each one and the individual and group curriculum planning that keeps their learning moving along. It's really draining work.

Also, kids touch you all the time, and when you multiply that by 12 or 20, it starts to wear. I remember I would get home and really, really not want anyone to touch me after a long day. Or call my name.

Just dropping in to say I have a museum membership (at least until May/June) and I can get in free (six people at a time, that's just how I roll) if anybunny in NYC (or visiting) wants to go. Just let me know.

Miko, the touching thing. Yeah. Not to speak for every single parent (mother, for the most part) of young children, but holy hell this can do your head in, with respect to your sex life. Just being touched the whole day... argh. And then the guilt when you shy away from your partner's touch because you want your body to yourself, dammit.

Wow, you are kind of a badass for doing this! I will bake cupcakes all weekend long but when it comes to chaperoning trips.... I'd rather get glue in my hair. The kids are so cute but SO MUCH WORK! Teachers can't be paid enough.

But it is such a short time. . .it does not seem like it whilst one is in it, but take it from me, it goes in a blink of an eye and maybe the kid will call once in awhile but for the most part they are on their life's path and you have to sorta guess what's going on.

That's my favorite museum in all the world and yeah, the one that made me go have a career in museums. I have been there with kids of all ages and never failed to go home exhausted but happy. One of my own very earliest museum memories is about the Irish elk there; I love that museum so so very much.

A museum career which I guess has ended with this, my first day of work as a cashier wearing an orange apron at a familiar big box store so, um, museum careers, yay.

The National History Museum is my Holly GoLightly-Tiffany's. On more then three occasions I've been very upset and out of it and I've gone right into the National History Museum and spent an hour sitting on a bench, looking at the beautiful painted displays of moose and such in their big, dark exhibition halls.

It's so fucking comforting it's not even funny. I think this is how people feel about temples/churches.

Congrats at the new job, MGL! I applied at the blue apron store (I wanted to work in a garden center) a few years ago and they never called me for an interview.

That is an awesome field trip, gaspode. I have always wanted to visit this museum.

Kids are so sweet. Every Tuesday I've been volunteering with 4th graders. (Not my kid's class but another.) They are supposed to read a chapter and do a worksheet. Most never read the chapter. Instead they hunt and peck for answers. It drives me batty. I went home and asked my kid if he hunts and pecks, and told him to never do that! :)

Go Gaspode! I'm signed up to chaperone my son's kindergarten class field trip to the zoo next month. Kindergarten's scary enough--no way I would have dared it with preschoolers.

Speaking as an assistant whose boss doesn't volunteer a lot for her kids' stuff, you are the best mom ever.

and coincidentally there was a groupon today for half off membership to the museum. So now we are family members of the met, the Bronx zoo/central park zoo/aquarium AND the natural history museum. Kid's gonna be seriously sick of these places :)