Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits

Baby M is going through a dinosaur phase. He has dinosaurs on his pajamas, reads dinosaur books and has become obsessed with the show Dinosaur Train on PBS (combining the two universal toddler passions, trains and dinosaurs. Genius!) So, this week I decided to take him to the Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits to see some real dinosaurs, or more accurately Ice Age mammals. This was a miscalculation on my part because Woolly Mammoths and Saber Tooth Tigers really don't have much in common with Brontosauruses, but Baby M was happy to be going to the "Dinosaur Museum" all the same.

We've visited Hancock Park and run around the tar pits plenty of times, but had never ventured into the Page Museum. I paid the $7 entrance fee (Baby M, being under 5 was free) and we wandered around looking at the giant skeletons, the animatronic mammoth and the wall of wolf skulls. Most of the exhibits were too complicated for Baby M, but he liked running around shouting "Mommy, look at that!" He also enjoyed walking through the atrium and watching the turtles.

Then we decided to check out the 10 minute movie "Treasures of the La Brea Tar Pits." This was another miscalculation on my part. Most of the film is animated, but it shows, in detail, exactly how all those animals got stuck in the tar pits. A panicked horse, stuck in the tar pit, is pounced upon by a snarling Saber Tooth Tiger. The tiger is soon joined by a pack of wolves, all feasting on the struggling horse. There may have been squirting blood. I can't remember, but it was definitely more violent than I was comfortable with. A few of the predators fall in the pit and the scene ends with their carcasses being picked over by vultures. Baby M seemed more confused than disturbed. "What happened to the horse, Mommy?" he kept asking through the remainder of the movie. Even once we were outside strolling past the tar pits he kept looking for that horse. After repeated explanations from me he finally concluded "the horse got stuck in the water pit," which he reported somberly to his father later that evening. Hopefully he is not scarred for life.

Boone Children's Gallery

Today Baby M and I went to the Boone Children's Gallery at LACMA. The gallery is a large room with tons of activities for kids and it's free! The current exhibit is called Construct and there are tables for drawing and painting, big easels for painting 4 foot high masterpieces, giant foam building blocks and more small wooden blocks than I have ever seen in once place. At 10 months, Baby M is a little too young for most of the activities although he loved climbing around the giant foam blocks and taking the wooden blocks off the shelf. As more kids arrived, including at least 3 Zoes (who knew Zoe was such a popular name?), the block area started to get a little too dangerous for Baby M so we walked around and looked at the creations by other kids and read a book called Building a House.

While at the gallery I signed Baby M up for NexGen, a LACMA program that offers free general admission to anyone under 17 and one accompanying adult. What a great program! After we finished at the Boone Children's Gallery we browsed the gift shop at the Page Museum (and validated our parking), crawled around on the grass in Hancock park, grabbed some lunch and then headed back into LACMA to check out a few of the galleries. We looked at some Picasso's, a Rothko, and a bunch of Kandinsky's before Baby M started getting fussy and it was time to go home. This was a fun outing and I think we'll do it again soon. I think it would be even more fun for slightly older kids.