We took the girls to the museum at the Art Institute today. I had been looking forward to this for a couple of weeks, and then as we were driving into the city, I started to get second thoughts about whether an art museum would be of any interest to a one and a four year old. Luckily we kept going because I haven’t seen Magoo have this much fun in a long time. It looks like the paintings of the princesses put the dinosaurs at the Field Museum to shame.
For me, the most fun was in watching Magoo’s face light up at the paintings and hearing her interpretations of them.
This was the first “queen” painting she saw, and she said that she was going to dress up like her when we got home. I’m not sure if we have anything that fancy in our collection of Target Circo dress up clothes, but she is regal.
And here was the “princess” that she really wanted to dress like.
She saw “Rapunzel.”
And she saw “Grandma.” Sorry to my mom for this one. I can personally attest that my mother does not look anything like this rather elderly woman.
Just like her father, she really liked the knights in shining armor.
And of course he made me take his picture as well.
Meanwhile, the Goose couldn’t have cared less about all of this. She was just happy she was no longer confined to her stroller. She saw a lot of stuff that she would have just loved to take a crayon to.
One of my favorite rooms was the quilting room.
It really inspired me to learn some more about this craft.
And my favorite painting, The Bedroom, by Van Gogh. I’ve always liked this painting because I find it very peaceful and tranquil, and then when I read the side blurb, it said that his purpose with this painting (and the room it was inspired by) was to allow the viewer to turn off his or her mind. Yup, that defines exactly why I like it. I want to sleep in that room and let its peace envelope me. I guess it didn’t do too much for him because it wasn’t much afterwards that he cut off his ear.
But of course, I couldn’t stand for too long at one painting because the little ones called. I had never been to the family section of the museum, and I was very impressed.
My favorite part was the picture books room. They had a few well known children’s books, and then on the wall hung some of the original artwork. This was from The Very Fairy Princess. Of course, Magoo liked it.
She also really liked Puff the Magic Dragon.
Across the hall, they had a fun play area with a lot of gorgeous picture books as well as blocks to stack and other fun activities for little ones. The Goose had a blast in there as did Magoo.
And Magoo got to practice her own drawing.
All in all, we had a blast, and we are already looking forward to our next trip. I can’t believe we’ve waited this long to take the girls there. Even more so, I can’t believe just how enchanted Magoo was by the whole experience. At points, she was jumping up and down and twirling in circles. I guess the kid has taste.
And I will end with this picture because Magoo’s favorite paintings in the whole museum were the Degas. This made sense of course because she sees herself as a ballerina princess, but it also made me feel a bit warm and fuzzy because my grandma loved art, and Degas was her favorite. Perhaps some things are just genetic.
