A few days ago, I started our morning by telling my girls we were going to the children’s museum to see Elephant and Piggie.
I case you don’t know, Elephant (Gerald) and Piggie (who doesn’t have another name) are the characters in a series of books by Mo Willems. We were introduced to Mo Willems recently by my Super Friend who gave Baby Sis the book “The Duckling Gets a Cookie?!” and a Duckling stuffed animal for her birthday. My girls loved Pigeon and Duckling, so the Easter Bunny brought them some Elephant and Piggie books. And, wonder of wonders, they love these too!
Needless to say, they were very excited when I told them we were going to see Gerald and Piggie and hear a new book “Elephants Cannot Dance.” They immediately rounded up all their books and started reading them (they have them memorized).
I managed to tear them away from the books so we could get dressed and make the 30 minute drive to the children’s museum with time to make several parking errors, fill a parking meter with most of my quarters only to realize that it had a 30-minute limit (you’re welcome red car that pulled in after me), finally find a place to park, and get inside, with time to spare before the program started.
The girls killed time with some construction vehicles,
mirrors and squishy toys and
vegetables.
It wasn’t planned this way, but we ended up meeting Super Friend and her husband and their kids for the show. Super Friend walked in with her kids, and her kids and my kids exclaimed simultaneously, “Our friends are here!!”
There was so much anticipation before the entrance of Elephant and Piggie.
They finally came in and…
Sat down.
Apparently the costumes they were wearing didn’t provide them with much ability to see, because both of them needed to be guided to their seats by a “handler,” and they did not get up again for the duration of the story time. At least Piggie waved a few times.
The girls were so excited to see them, they didn’t care one bit. I was the only one who was disappointed I think, becasue I thought E and P were actually going to read/act out the book.
The woman who did read it did a great job though and had the kids up and dancing and spinning and having a good old time.
We got to “meet” the immobile, mute Elephant and Piggie afterwards. It was a very stimulating experience…
The girls got to do a craft, making hula skirts out of paper afterwards.
While we were crafting, Miss got wise to the fact that it wasn’t really Elephant and Piggie there at the story time when she looked hard over at Piggie next to us and saw a gap in the costume at the neck. Some guy’s hairy neck was showing, and my girl figured that one out right smartly. Later she told me, “Mom, I don’t think that was the real Gerald and Piggie we saw today. I think it was just someone dressed like them.”
Afterwards the girls had lots of time to run and play with their friends and explore some of the rest of the museum.
We don’t go there enough. It has been about 2.5 years since we were there last, so neither of them remember being there before, but they’re already asking to go back.
We used up all of our usual school time to go there, so after we got home Miss asked when we were going to do school. Surprisingly she wasn’t that thrilled when I told her that our trip to the children’s museum was our school for the day.
It was a great “field trip.”
