It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood...

Today, it is safe to say that Ethan had the most fun he has ever had in his 17.5 months of life. AJ left early this morning for Honors Choir and will be gone until late evening due to musical auditions. Rather than spend the whole day with no adult company, my mom came up and spent the day. We decided to take Ethan to The Children's Museum. It was FABULOUS!

Ethan fell asleep (his only rest of the entire day...) on the way there but lit up as soon as we got inside. If you have kids, this is THE place to be in Pittsburgh. We started out in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood where they recreated the entire set. The shoes, the trolly, the treehouse, the castle - it's all there! Everything is interactive and geared towards kids E's age. He ran from set to set, shrieking and giggling. It was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen!

He loved the puppets!

On the trolly!

Clock...or "light" according to Ethan.

They also had some cool hands-on stuff in that part - this wall where if you pressed on one side, these pegs pushed through on the other. Ethan had a field day with that.

There was also a piano that played songs from the show when kids pressed the keys. Ethan was pretty proud of himself. Note that he's also holding a puppet he stole from the tree house set...

In the castle, it was lined with doors, one for each letter of the alphabet. When you opened the doors, there was a little scene inside that had items relating to that letter. Ethan opened every single one and slammed every single one shut. Each time, we'd hear "peek" and "bye-bye." What a weirdo.

They also had the traffic light like on the show - there were buttons to press for red, yellow, and green. Anyone who knows Ethan knows that the kid is borderline obsessed with lights, so we stood there for about 20 minutes while he pressed away.

Finally, there was the fish tank. We have a fish tank from our very first apartment together that has been in storage ever since we moved from there. Our plan has always been to pull it out again once we moved, and after seeing E's fascination with the fish, I know he will LOVE it!

After that, we moved to the second floor, dubbed "The Nursery." It has stuff for smaller kids like E, which was great because it wasn't crowded at all and we didn't have to worry about a bigger kid running into our little man. There was a giant Light Bright wall (ah...memories of my youth...) that was awesome.

They also had a train, fish tank, a walkway that had cool things underneath of it, and spinny things on the walls.

The only thing Ethan wasn't too sure about in this section was the sand table - the kid is sort of OCD when it comes to dirty hands. He's not a texture person at all, but he tried!

We should have just ended our trip there. But, instead we decided to head to the third floor for ... the water section. It had a giant "river" with boats floating. Of course, Ethan was more interested in the fountain floor, which, of course, got him soaked. They have little rain jackets there but they are GIGANTIC and wouldn't have worked for him. We let him go for it anyway.

We had some lunch before heading out, all of us exhausted and soggy. Thanks to Grandma for a wonderful day!