Field Museum of Dreams

A couple weeks ago, the kids and I visited the Field Museum in Chicago. We traveled with friends, which made the trip much more exciting and helped keep the kids (and me) entertained on the long trip to Chicago and through the museum. The Field Museum is a natural history museum, so it has a unique odor—a dash of hospital, a smattering of science class on dissection day, and a large pinch of a poorly ventilated room full of old books and papers with water damage (just look at how I packed in those prepositional phrases).

James was extremely excited for the trip. Days in advance, he packed up a select group of his animals for the expedition. Mainly dinosaurs and prehistoric animals made the cut; the rest of the animals remained at home to ponder their uselessness. I suppose his animals, like most of us, enjoy a day out and the opportunity to see themselves as skeletons.

While at the museum, our first major stop was the dinosaur wing. The museum has a t-rex skeleton named Sue. From reading the handy-dandy plaques, we learned that Sue's fossil head is too heavy to keep on the big skeleton, so they store her real noggin in a glass box.

James and Alison and their friend Clark in front of Sue the T-Rex's Head (It's extremely hard to get 3 year olds to look at the camera.)

Pictures in front of Sue the T-Rex's Menacing Bones

Kids Sitting in an Apatosaurus (a.k.a. Brontosaurus) Footprint

Kids Riding a Dinosaur Bone (I Don't Know Which Make and Model of Dinosaur)

At the end of the dinosaur exhibit, which also contained prehistoric mammals so it probably is called something else, there is a strategically placed gift shop. James used some of his money to buy an amebelodon, which is a prehistoric mammal from the same scientific order as the elephant. Alison used her money to buy a stuffed, red stegosaurus. Phil didn't get anything; he has no money. The following picture shows James and Ali pretending to nap with their purchases.

Kids Taking Pretend Naps in a Pawnee Earth Lodge Replica (Phil Wouldn't Cooperate with the Pretend Nap Idea)

Various Pictures of James at the Museum