It's a date with butterflies

Last week, we finally made a date with our neighbor-friends, Margaret and her daughter Corinne, to venture into the city to check out one of the Smithsonians. It's been pretty chilly here and for any of my Californian friends who are spoiled to more temperate climates, it's just plain too cold to stay outside.  :)  (FYI, for us Canadians, today was a lovely "brisk" day, and I didn't even need my gloves).  Anyway, today we've opted for one of the free indoor options that aren't any of our houses and went to see the butterflies at the Museum of Natural History.

Visiting any of the Smithsonians is such a great idea for kids in the winter.  Most of them have been pretty well equipped with elevators, change rooms, highchairs and decent selection of foods.  They don't look at you strangely for bringing a child and today we actually met up with another mama who runs "tours" of the Smithsonians with other mothers in Arlington.

The butterfly exhibit was beautiful, warm and steamy.  Corinne was mesmerized by the butterflies, while I think Gabriel was a little more timid of the misting machines that clicked on and off.  He's been really in-tuned to noise lately, coming into the kitchen when I turn on the food processor, mimicking it's whirring sound with his own higher-pitched drone, "ahhhhhhhhh....." or turning on the dishwasher so he can hear it hum and then imitating the sound it makes whilst resting against the warmth of the shaking machine.  Anyway, he loved the butterflies and kept pointing to them and the brightly coloured flowers.

It was somewhat magical...  all those big beautiful butterflies.  Especially when they took a gracious moment to alight of the back or arm of an auspicious gazer.  You aren't supposed to touch them but if you are so fortunate as to have one stop awhile and use your arm or finger as a place of repose, it simply takes your breath away.  A favorite, for sure, was the big bold blue butterfly whose wings were so wide it was almost frightening, and yet so delicate and impossible to get a picture of.  The moment they perch, they fold those large bright wings and hide their colour. 

Both kids did so amazingly well!  My friend, Margaret and I shook our heads because we couldn't believe we've been here this long and this is the first time we've done something like this.  So, as long as we are here, we've decided we are going to check out a Smithsonian at least once a week.

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