Finally I’m “settled-in” enough after the move from NC to LA to take Patrick on fun adventures. Before this week, we’ve spent our mom-and-son time doing projects around the house, grocery shopping, furniture shopping, etc. With the exception of weekly story time at the library, we haven’t done a lot of fun toddler enrichment together. Until now! We loved our trip to the LSU Museum of Natural Science on Monday.

Monday was great for a stroll through LSU’s beautiful campus. Even for a pregnant space-heater like me, Baton Rouge’s weather finally felt comfortable. I enjoyed telling Patrick about his family members who went to school at LSU. He got excited when the bell tower rang. He also pointed out the zillion acorns on the ground from the stately live oaks and hoped that the squirrels were hungry!

We arrived at Foster Hall, found our way into the museum, and discovered we had the whole place to ourselves. Occasionally someone from the faculty or staff would pass through and say hello, but we were the only visitors. It was nice to freely roam from exhibit to exhibit, stopping to explore each collection that caught Patrick’s attention.

 The museum is the perfect size. We made one pass through the whole museum at a leisurely pace. I remember how much I enjoyed this museum when I was younger. It was a treat to watch my son gaze at each display, name all the animals he knew, and ask me questions about the ones he didn’t recognize.

After one complete pass, we were able to double back at Patrick’s lead to the exhibits he liked the most: the hall of Louisiana birds, the diorama of gulls and pelicans on the beach, and (of course) the insect case. For a boy who loves to read about beetles, whose favorite movie is the insect documentary MicroCosmos, and who has been asking for a bug-themed birthday party for months… the toddler-eye-level insect case was the highlight of the museum. We spent a considerable amount of time with the insects.

Patrick was a little apprehensive about the Mike the Tiger exhibit because pressing any one of the five buttons produced a very loud, realistic tiger roar, growl, chuff, etc. And luckily for him, the motion sensor on the rattlesnake is broken. I remember being startled by the sudden movement of the tail rattling when I got close enough to examine the snake when I was younger. I think it was good that the tail didn’t rattle for Patrick this time.

We spent the morning at the museum. When I was able to convince Patrick to leave it, we picked up lunch at the Subway at the bottom of Foster Hall for a picnic on a bench. My little science guy fell asleep in the car on the ride home and enjoyed talking about the museum even more after he woke up from a long nap. We can’t wait to go back.