Dozing with Dinos

 

  To let you know how behind I am in life, I am just now posting about our adventure from 2 weeks ago…

  Ever so often, the MOSH has what they call public camp-ins.  They have a special theme that runs through the evening, with a planetarium and laser show, an extreme science show, movies and snacks.  I heard about it on the radio and thought to myself, I’ll bet Emma would love that.

  I was wrong.  She loved the idea of sleeping in MOSH, but she was sure the Dinos were going to eat her, the lasers were going to kill her, and in her words, the science show was “extremely too scary.”  Of course, her father and I were not informed of this until we were already locked in the museum.  She came out from under her blankie long enough to figure out that the planetarium show was really neat, and the lasers were just pictures on the ceiling (not flying around the room) set to music. That part she enjoyed.  The science show was another story. 

  If you have ever been to MOSH, you know that it can get really loud inside the JEA science theater. When you add the electricity (that is visible) I guess it can be frightening to a child – but mine was the only one huddled under a blanket.   The two kids that were running the camp in were really great and demonstrated some amazing things to do with liquid nitrogen – including making a thunderstorm and ice cream.  They also made Dino Snot. (Green Jell-O with bits of pudding in it – I couldn’t even look at the stuff let alone try it. The ice cream was really good, though.)

 

  Then the real fun began.  Once we were let out of the theater it was a free for all. We were finally allowed to get our belongings out of the conference room and find a place to sleep – on a first come first serve basis.  Our family had no desire to sleep near the dinos (the prime location), but Emma wanted to sleep next to the big whale in the Atlantic Tales exhibit.  Since she had not had much fun up to this point, I was determined to get her next to that whale. 

  As I was setting up our bedding beneath said whale, these two boys decided they were going to sleep there as well.  Now, these were not just any boys – these were the two heathens that had been LITERALLY climbing on all the exhibits and seeing how much damage they could do without anyone noticing.  I began by calmly telling them that they could not sleep there because we were sleeping there. Then the snotty heathen #1 told me (in snotty heathen voice) that there was plenty of room.  I (more forcefully) informed him that the only person that had the right to put their sleeping bag touching my mine was my daughter and I was not going to climb over him to get out of bed.  He then told on me to his father (I am not kidding - “that mean lady said we can’t sleep here”)   His father, who was not sleeping anywhere near his heathens finally decided to control his charges and told then to move.  I am really glad I didn’t have to find the museum guys and be a tattletale, but by that time mama bear was going to defend her den and cub.

   We slept okay and then had donuts and juice the next morning.  As much as Jason and I enjoyed the sleepover, I think that we’ll leave the museum for daylight trips in the future.