Our First Trip to the Children's Museum of Memphis

Like most good adventures (and almost every day of my adult life) our first trip to the Children's Museum of Memphis was unplanned.

Easter Eve 2017 started out like most Saturdays in the South, with an early-morning trip (Little Miss Sunshine by my side) to get coffee and sausage biscuits.

Trying on party hats at the new Dollar Tree that recently (as of 4/17) opened in Ripley, Mississippi. 

Inside Dollar Tree I was suckered into buying a bracelet/necklace set and 100 water balloons. Upon return to Nana's house, we filled up all 100 of the penny ballons and proceeded to throw them at imaginary monsters that looked an awful lot like Nana's, Mama's and Daddy's cars.

Once the balloons were popped, we decided it was time for a little change of scenery. We got dressed, loaded up the Kia with a bucket of toys, and set off for Memphis. 

My rented, obnoxiously green Kia Soul made it almost 60 miles outside of Ripley before our first stop: Dairy Queen. Though neither of us were hungry, we managed to polish off a chicken strip kids meal and two chocolate dipped cones.

Landry eating a Dairy Queen dipped cone

We got back on 78 headed west and took it all the way to Tennessee, going through a few questionable parts of town before finally spotting the Liberty Bowl.

Landry didn't technically know that we were going to the Children's Museum. I asked her what she wanted to do and she said she wanted "to go jump at the trampoline park". I told her the museum was nearby. We can go check it out first, and if she wanted to leave we could turn right around and go to the trampoline park.

After pulling up to a giant milk jug, and a bounce ball court filled with kids who appeared to be having a good time, Dees was curious enough to at least "go inside and check it out for a minute".

I'm an eternal optimist, but The Children's Museum of Memphis is kind of old. It's not in the best part of town and it's a tad expensive ($34 for one adult, one child and parking). 

But step inside and a little voice inside your head, and perhaps one at your side will start to offer you some assurance you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

To kick things off we played a little no rules life sized connect four.

I suspect my little one would have been quite content to feed the massive checkers into the taller-than-her board until the museum closed; however, my curiosity was in overdrive. I strongly suggested we keep looking around. 

After "one" more "game" (that turned into four) we said farewell to our diversion and made the short walk over to the Mississippi river exhibit where we had quite the time catching pretend magnetic catfish. So intent were we on our freshwater pursuits that I, as one tends to do in such situations, misplaced our bird-dog.

From the lack of urgency apparent on Landry's face, I could tell the loose dog was less of a daughterly concern than it was dad's issue to resolve. With great relief and little surprise, Decker was located in the aviary unattended but unharmed a few minutes later.

We channeled our inner Tom Hanks with a FedEx plane cargo loading exhibit and spent some time in the life-size cockpit before tooling around with a really neat flight simulator come lesson in aerodynamics

We then made our way down to the agricultural exhibit which included a nursing sow, a life-size cow with udders you could "milk", and a chicken coup. 

Gardening created a sense of health consciousness that naturally lead to dentistry and rock climbing which then resulted in a detour to play with the neatest vacuum since the Dyson ball and the best use of color pegs and white light since Light Brite.

Post police car posing and once we were done at the disco we built block towers then knocked them down with the shaking table earthquake simulator.

We then went outside and bounced a llama, tilted whirl, and zip lined like that one time in Costa Rica.

They shutdown like clockwork at 5 pm but nobody got upset because we were pooped.

Baby girl finally fell asleep on the way back to Ripley. I took a vow to not let that be my last time at the Children's Museum of Memphis, and if my kids behave, it won't be their last time either

Some Tips

• dining options are limited, and even though you can't bring food and drinks inside, you should still pack snacks and drinks and keep them in your car which you may return t
• unless you're fairly certain you won't be back, it makes sense to buy a one year membership. It pays for itself on the third use.
• bring wet wipes, hand sanitizer, or a kick ass immune system. There were many hands on the hands-on experience before you and your kids
• parents can actively participate in almost every aspect of the museum so don't sit on your butt glued to your phone and passively parent. Explore teach augment learn and explain alongside your child
• if you want to get some good pictures consider bringing a cell phone tripod. I use this one from Polar Pro