Adventures in Portland Town, April 7th
Today, we went on Adventures in Portland Town!
Our destination of the day was the Portland Children's Museum.
We started our day at the Max station and were all very excited to share stories about last night's wind storm while we waited for our train. We talked about the down trees and fences that we seen on our way to the station, and how the trains were all running late because of tree branches on the tracks.
We talked about our feelings of being a little bit scared of the big wind too. Since it was still a REALLY windy day, I suggested that we ask The Wind to play with us so we could discover how wind can be safe and fun, and not so scary. We experimented with spinning, dancing, running against, and shouting into the wind until our train came.
And, we all felt much less scared of her after our play.
Lila and Lorax were both excited to go downtown and our short walk from the orange to the blue line was quite silly and adventurous, with them giving a great big hello to everyone we passed.
It was a busy day at the museum, and there were so many friends to play with. Both Lila and Lorax absorbed themselves into their play as soon as we arrived, and could hardly be convinced to stop for a brief lunch outside the Makers Studio. Lila found a stuffed dog friend who they seemed to be very familiar with and carried the dog with us our whole day from room to room.
Our favorite play stations of the day were the grocery store and diner, along with the Outdoor Adventure exhibit. Lorax's tree climbing skills are becoming quite developed and they were able to climb all the way to the upper limbs of the gentle grandmother cedar tree who lives in the court yard. I was unsure of their skill at making it back down, but they surprised both Lila and I by making all the way up and all the way back down, all on their own.
Lorax and Lila played an extra long game of hide-and-seek together, squealing their way through the bamboo forest, and especially loved the twisted twig house. Which is awesome. We talked about how cool it would be to build one in our own back yard someday.
Then before we knew it, it was time to catch the train and make our way back to the Max station. Since we were the only ones waiting on the platform, we let ourselves have some fun exploring the way our loud voices echoed in the tunnel. Their joy and engagement with this activity surpassed my expectations, and they screamed and shouted and roared until they exhausted themselves.
Check out our photos from the day!