Coyote Point Museum and St. Vincent de Paul

And so it goes...

I left off with last Thursday. The Coyote Point Museum was cool. We didn't make it in time for the fox or otter feedings which was kind of a bummer, but I decided we needed to make an effort to go anyway. It was worth it - all in all Tommy is a little young for it, some of the stuff is more geared towards older children and they don't have anything that is specifically geared towards toddlers. They have a Toddler Tuesday twice per month, but based on what I've read about that, even that doesn't seem truly geared towards a young 2 year old. Still, there were things that Thomas definitely enjoyed. He liked the bee/honey making exhibit and got a big laugh out of the my saying that bees go "bzzzzzzz", that sound makes him laugh. We walked around a bit more inside the museum, but pretty much everything inside was just too old for him. There were these metal dinosaur molds and the idea was to put a piece of paper over them and then rub a crayon across them and you get this cool dinosaur picture to take home, but Thomas couldn't hold the crayon on it's side, his hands aren't that dextrous yet, so it was frustrating for him. Although they had lots of exhibits that were aimed at children, generally he is still a bit short for those and I still had to hold him up a bit so that he could see them. They have a fish exhibit that he really liked as well, and even a little bench thing that the kids can crawl up on so that they can see better, but Tommy tripped getting down and fell on the hardwood floor. He wasn't hurt, but it kind of emphasized the point for me that the museum will be a better place for him when he is a bit older.

[The thing is this: most of these kinds of places (zoo, museums, etc.) offer memberships. Basically you pay one price for the whole year and you can go for free as many times as you want. I think that it would be fun to have a membership somewhere to encourage us to go a lot - but I want it to be somewhere that will continue to be interesting after the 100th visit - haha - and also somewhere where there will be lots of opportunity for learning. The Coyote Point museum has lots of cool events like storytime and environmental workshops for little kids and that makes it an attractive choice. It's also a pretty easy drive from where we live. But I think I'll wait at least another year before buying a membership there. Right now I think the zoo would be a better choice - he definitely seemed to get a lot out of that experience. The other issue is that it's going to start getting colder soon and there will be a lot less opportunity for outdoor activities.]

After we were done inside the museum we went outside. They have a large outside area with live animal exhibits that is pretty nice. Tommy always enjoys these. They had a species of small owls and Tommy kept saying "baby owl", which I thought was cute. They had a coyote (those things always give me the creeps!), a golden eagle, some ravens (again, creepy!), fox, several species of snakes, a large aviary that was kind of fun because he could get out and walk around and it also had turtles and fish which he likes, skunk, raccoon, fox, porcupine, a bobcat, and an otter which was sleeping while we were there. Tommy got a kick out of the animal exhibits and I enjoyed them as well, although many of the mammels were sleeping or in places in their enclosures where you couldn't see them. Maybe one day over the next couple of weeks I will take him to the Oakland Zoo so that we can check that out. Also, when it gets colder I want to take him to the Exploratorium. When Jeanine (Emmett's sister) took her daughter and her daughter's friend there over Labor Day weekend she said that they have a toddler area now that Tommy would probably enjoy.

All in all it was a fun experience at the Coyote Point museum. We were there a couple of hours and that seemed to be enough, which has it's benefits as well. Sometimes its nice to go somewhere where you are not going to be gone 8 hours at a time to see the whole thing.

Since the museum is in San Mateo, which is about 10 miles south of my house, I decided we might as well go a little be farther and go back to the St. Vincent de Paul resale shop that is right by where I used to live in Redwood City. That place is the BEST resale shop I have seen, and by now, believe me, I have been to a fair number of resale shops. The merchandise is several notches above the Goodwill or Salvation Army because it's all in *great* condition, but it's better than Savers or some of the other resale shops because the prices are so INCREDIBLY low. I'm just going to have to make a point to go there every couple of months and stock up on clothes for Tommy because here in the Bay area where everything is so outrageously expensive, it really is the last bastian of great deals. I bought Thomas 7 books for $4, including an Elmo/Sesame Street book that he is just crazy about and a small board book version of Goodnight Moon which is his favorite story overall. I bought Thomas a bunch of designer clothes - almost all of them were Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, etc. - in nearly perfect condition, and I didn't pay more than $2.50 for any individual piece. In fact, I got a wonderful pair of blue cordoroy pants that are like new, Ralph Lauren, for $1. As I said, it was amazing. You still have to pick through a lot because they are not sorted by size at all, all the children's clothes are just heaped in one area of the store, but the thing is that none of the clothes are in crappy condition, so you don't have to examine them for missing buttons or stains like you do at other resale shops.

Oopps, gotta run...Tommy's awake.

More later,
Melissa