The museum had many other interesting stations that Alice enjoyed as well, including a doctor's office, grocery store, cave exploring, a train set, an airplane, an old-fashioned school house, an elaborate water table, etc.
There was a play area for babies too, but Simon was due for a nap while we were there so he only played a little bit and wanted to be held most of the time.
From there, we went to lunch at a pizza parlor downtown. Simon immediately fell asleep. This was also the first time Alice went to a restaurant and just sat in a normal chair (no booster seat). She did pretty well, although she did keep trying to sit backwards.
Then we went to the downtown Mansfield carrousel. Alice loves to ride the carrousel at Pullen Park, but we only ride it one time. But in Mansfield, she got to ride it three times in a row!
We noticed that despite all the fun, Alice was a little less exuberant than normal. It turned out she had a fever. We couldn't believe our bad luck--she'd been terribly sick when we were in Ohio for Christmas too. But after a good nap, she mustered enough energy for the evening activity: a pontoon boat ride.
Simon's favorite part was drinking water out of a plastic cup (because we forgot his sippy cup).
Two interesting things happened on this boat ride. We were not far out of our own cove when we noticed a man sitting on the front of his pontoon boat paddling. Nelson quickly inferred that he was having engine trouble, and we rode to the rescue. We ended up pulling him back to his own dock, and along the way learned that this handsome, muscular, deeply tanned, lightly tattooed stranded man was a firefighter. It would have been something out of a romance novel if we weren't all married with kids.
The other funny thing was that the first time we approached the bridge, Alice saw it coming and laid down on one of the seats, presumably because she thought there wasn't enough clearance under the bridge. I find it interesting that she is always observing her environment, predicting possible calamities, and taking the necessary preventative measures. As we got under the bridge, we were able to convince her that she would not be decapitated if she sat up. On the way back she was fine.
