Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

Saturday night, we spent the night in the Denver Museum of Science and Natural History.  It’s an event the museum runs every year.  We took sleeping bags and camped out on the floor next to the exhibit of our choice.  They gave us a snack for dinner, and the museum staff ran workshops and learning stations throughout the museum as well as kept the regular exhibits operational until lights out at 11PM.  Neil and Alan really wanted to do it this year so we signed up a month ago.  It’s all they talked about for the last several weeks.  So, we packed it all up Saturday afternoon and headed to the museum for a night of less than comfortable sleep in front of the stuffed Gemsbok in the Botswana wildlife section (I thought it’d be a nice, pleasant atmosphere).  All in all it was a fun experience, despite my spending most of yesterday’s afternoon catching up on sleep.    

I Little Awkward:    

We arrived at the museum just a few minutes before they let everybody in for the night.  I knew I was going to be in for it when I got to the front doors and waded into a sea of Brownies (little girl scouts) and moms.  Apparently the event is a major draw for the Brownie troops in the area.  It seemed like they all showed up.  “Okay,” I said, “I can deal with this.”  Mely thought the museum staff would separate the Brownies from the general population because, as she put it, “who wants to have anything to do with that mess?” Thankfully, that’s what happened; the Brownies got their own section of the museum.  The whole thing was advertised as a family event.  Thus, when we signed up, I didn’t think I’d run into a gender issue; it turned out though that I was about the only father there.  In fact, I thought I was the only father until I saw three others huddled together for protection off to the side, away from the clamor.  That’s how we ended up with the Gemsbok in Batswana.  We checked in and made a dash for the most secluded place we could find – third floor, south west corner.  It was a good choice, too, because everybody else made a bee line for the Space Science exhibits.    

3-D IMAX and Leaving the Museum    

I’m pretty good at sleeping in uncomfortable places, but I’m not so good at dealing with snoring.  One of the only other men in the place happened to set up camp next to the Zebra (We probably picked Botswana for the same reason), and he snored all night.  I only got about 3 hours of sleep.  I wanted to kick him and run for it, but sometimes we know we can’t do what we really want to do, so I didn’t.  Sleeping wasn’t the high point of the night.  However, in the morning we all got to see the 3-D IMAX presentation, Under The Sea, and that was an experience.  On a regular screen 3-D is pretty fun, but 3-D on a genuine IMAX screen is downright impressive.  If a regular IMAX experience is too boring for you, try one in 3-D because that’ll wake you right up.  The movie was the last directed activity of the sleepover, and we all walked out of the museum as the first morning patrons were walking in.  The parents were all exhausted, but the kids, as expected, were ready to go again.  Oh, I’m sure this will become a yearly ritual for us.  But next time, I’m going to bring a sleeping mat or an air mattress, and I’m going to find the absolute, most secluded place in the museum – maybe next to the Egyptian mummies!    

Note:  The Brownies were surprisingly well behaved.  The den mothers (what do you call a Brownie leader? A Baker?) must have had a miserable night, but they did their duty, and the girls were no problem at all.  I suspect if it had been a Cub Scout pack instead of a bunch of little girls, we might all have gone insane.  So, good job, Brownies, for not being obnoxious little monsters.    

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