Adventure #1 – The Natural History Museum – Mummascribbles

We have the week off work this week and we promised Zach some adventures. I mean, this is the boy who is happy enough with an adventure to the slide at the park round the corner so anything else is simply awesome!

The other half has been dying to take him to the Natural History Museum in London, well…since I was pregnant haha! I’ve been putting it off a bit to make sure that Zach was old enough and that he would appreciate at least some of what was there. I wasn’t expecting him to be standing asking questions about minerals and the Earth forming but I did want him to be involved in the day.

Of course, the first piece of excitement was that we had to get on a few choo choo trains to get there. We live just outside London so it meant one overground train and then two underground trains (South Kensington is such a long way!). Now, my boy is obsessed with trains. Every night we have to read some kind of train book, we have to pretend we are trains when we are out on a walk, Zach pushing the buggy and us being the carriages, and all he talks about is going on the train…every day! He is constantly jealous that me and his daddy get to go on trains five times a week. So when he gets to go, it’s the best thing ever.

    

When we got to the museum, there was a short queue but it didn’t take us long to get in. We didn’t go in the main entrance (we were told the queue was long when it wasn’t), and this entrance took us into the bit where the escalator leads up to the Earth section and he was immediately fascinated. We decided to do the dinosaurs first though because, well, he loves dinosaurs and we didn’t want him to get tired and not enjoy them! Before we reached the main hall where Dippy is, he was treated to a taster of what was to come!

 

Then it was time for Dippy. I don’t know if you know, but Dippy is being removed and replaced by the Blue Whale which we are saddened by. I do kind of understand that the Blue Whale is still alive and kicking today and therefore more relevant, but Dippy has been there for as long as I’ve known and so we wanted Zach to see him before it goes. He loved him immediately!

    

Next up, we joined the queue to get into the main dinosaur section. Again, it wasn’t a long queue…luckily half the schools have already gone back else it could have been! We weren’t sure how he’d like the dinosaurs but he was enthralled with them, spotting them moving, seeing the skeletons and roaring with them!

Then it was time for the big one. The moving, roaring T-Rex. This was either going to make or break him. We were about to find out just what level of braveness our boy has. Whether the huge roaring T-Rex would make him excited or make him cry! I’m happy to report that he thought it was fantastic!

 

Once we were done with the dinosaurs (he was saying goodbye dinosaurs as we were leaving the section), we wandered around looking at anything that may interest him and there was plenty!

            

It was then time to go up to the Earth section – the bit that he’d first seen and was so excited about!

    

Something else we did was go into the Earthquake section. If you haven’t been, there is a room that shows footage of an earthquake and shakes as it would have done based on the actual earthquake. Again, I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about this and he was a bit jittery and unsure but after the ‘tremor’ had ended, he wanted to experience it again! I don’t have any pictures of this as I was holding onto him tightly!

After this, we grabbed his buggy from the cloakroom as he was looking pretty worn out after running round like mad for 2.5 hours, and we headed off to the mammal section. He just (with a little help from mummy), managed to stay awake long enough to see the giant Blue Whale, but then he was gone. Off for a nap to dream about dinosaurs and earthquakes! Absolutely shattered!

So then the other half and I wandered some more but by this point my legs were aching and I needed a sit down. We begrudgingly paid a ridiculous amount of money for two cans of drink (we took our own packed lunch for earlier in the day so we didn’t have to spend a fortune!), and had a relax. We then visited the shop, decided not to buy anything and headed on out to the tube station. Upon me covering Zach with my cardi, he woke from his nap, happy that he hadn’t missed any of the train journey home!

    

I think it’s safe to say that Zach had an absolutely amazing day. I had some comments on Facebook as to how well he really took to it at two and a half and I would say he really did. Yes, there is lots he didn’t care abut but we purposefully picked sections that we thought would interest him and as you can see, he was absolutely fascinated. I’m so glad that the first trip of our staycation was a huge success. He was telling everyone about it at nursery today!

Have you had a fab day out with your little ones to the Natural History Museum? I think we need to try the Science Museum next – I’ve heard that it’s fab and that a change of clothes is required!