Field Trips With Dad (By Dad)

Cristina has asked me to write a piece on some of the things that Maïa and Solanne do with Dad. During most weekdays, I'm away from the house, so I don't get to see all the exciting things the kids are up to at first hand; in fact, sometimes I end up reading the blog and finding out new things that my kids are doing that I hadn't been aware of! But the last couple of weeks I've taken some days off from school, mostly to give Cristina a chance to catch up on work, meaning that I needed to find something to do with the kids.

Field trips are fun. Two weeks ago we decided to go to the Insectarium, which is apparently the biggest insect museum in North America. In my infinite wisdom I decided we could make it across town by bus instead of taking the car--that way, I told myself, I could avoid traffic and parking hassles. The fun part was keeping them entertained. Luckily I had brought a big bag of raisins, so Maïa had a good time trying to put all the raisins into the little crack at the bottom of the window, and Solanne had an equally good time trying to stuff the remaining raisins into her mouth all at the same time. Even more fun was the part where I accidentally got us off at the wrong stop, then realized that I had no idea what part of the city we were in. But they best part was when we finally got there--four buses and an hour and a half later--only to realize we still had to walk a fair ways to get to the museum. An interesting fact about children is that you can usually count on them to decide at a point like this that they are tired of walking and want you to carry them. Well, Maïa wanted me to carry her...Solanne was already strapped into our trusty Mountain Equipment Co-op backpack carrier, which meant I had one kid on my back and one on my front. For some reason, the kids thought that this situation was hilarious, although I'm not sure I was able to appreciate the joke in quite the same way! But we got there.

Actually, we had a lot of fun, and I shouldn't complain because despite my mistake about the buses, they were in a great mood. We saw A LOT of bugs, which, I am happy to say, is as interesting to Maïa as it is to me (I think bugs are pretty cool). Solanne, of course, was happy to do anything--she just likes being carried around in the backpack. Anyway, we saw all kinds of critters: stick bugs and leaf bugs (some of whom were, um, busy making baby stick bugs), shiny green and blue beetles that are used to make jewellery in South America, giant goliath and rhinocerous beetles with huge horns that get pitted against each other in fights to the death in South-east Asia and Japan, enormous indigo-winged butterflies, a terrarium full of cockroaches longer than my thumb, huge cicadas from Asia whose singing must be deafening, and scorpions that glow in the dark (Maïa really liked this one). By the way, next time any of you talk to Maïa, ask her to do her cicada sound; it's pretty cute.

So what kind of bug did Maïa like the best? "The little one." Go figure.

This past week I thought we would try something a little closer to home, so I suggested that we visit the Musée des Beaux Arts, which is downtown, not far from the McGill campus. I had read in this guide book we have that they have a studio there where kids can make art. So first I had to explain to Maïa what "art" is. "Art means things that you draw or paint, Maïa--like your pictures. When you draw pictures, that's art." She was sold on that one. "I want to do art! I want to go to the art gallery!" Mission accomplished. Apparently, she talked about it the whole day and a half leading up to the trip. So, to the art gallery we went.

So we took the bus again (only this time I really did know the way), and what is the first statue we run into in the entrance hall? Something called "Horse and Cougar," a gigantic horse with, you got it, a cougar sitting on its back. I'm not sure how the sculptor got the horse and cougar to pose for this one, but whatever he did, it was a brilliant idea. Maïa was absolutely enthralled with this giant "Clickey," and Solanne made sure I was well aware of how excited she was that there was a huge kitty cat sitting on its back. We spent five or ten minutes just looking at it. It was perfect.

The studio thing for kids was not running (it only operates on weekends), but we had a good time looking at some of the colourful creations that different kids had made. My favourite was a set of telephones painted and papier-mâché'd into a horde of crazy monsters. Then we went to look at the galleries of contemporary art. We had a good conversation about a giant painting of burning grass. It went something like this: "The grass is not burning, Daddy." "Yes it is, Maïa, look at the fire." "No, it's not." "Well, really, it IS...but don't worry, only a little bit of it will burn. It will be okay." "No, it's not burning, Daddy." "Sigh. Okay, Maïa, it's not burning." We also got to look at two gigantic carved wooden heads, which, I found out, were really the carved likenesses of Mummy and Daddy (I didn't know my nose looked like that...). But the best was the nude torso of a woman, with a butterfly hovering over her private parts. "What's that, Dad?" "Uh, that's a butterfly, Mai." "That tickles her, Daddy."

I still have no idea how to respond to that.

Anyway, it was a great day out. Solanne, once again, loved just being in the backpack. She has a great time just bouncing around in there. Sometimes I feel like I'm neglecting her, but she makes her own entertainment--making hooting noises in the cavernous rooms of the art gallery and listening to the echo ("Shhh, Sol, everyone's staring at us!"), or laughing like crazy at her sister. I guess if she's happy, I should just accept it and not ask too many questions!

So what was your favourite thing at the art gallery, Maïa?

"The horse."