Sam's back, fish tanks, and angry children

I'm not sure what possessed me to do this but, on Monday, I took the kids into the city to visit the Academy of Sciences Museum. It is a brand new building, slightly less than a year old and boasts a new aquarium, planetarium, and rainforest. It is a pretty awesome place and has wonderful exploratory opportunities for children. Apparently, all of San Francisco knows this because everyone who lives in the city was present, I kid you not, on Monday.

Everywhere you went, there was a line: the bathroom, the elevator, the cafe, the planetarium, the feeding pool, the touching pool, the gift store, the aquarium exibits, the animal exhibits...In short, everything under the roof had a wait time. It was painful. Very, very painful. I knew I should have turned around when I saw the line to the parking garage but I thought to myself, "It can't be that bad." Truthfully, it was worse than bad...it was maddening. Nevertheless, I put on my "Be a Resilient Mom Hat" and took my two children, our large stroller, our diaper bag, our packed lunches, my camera, our sweaters, and my diminishing patience into that building(Note: I should have gone home).

We began our adventure at the aquarium portion of the building. Sam got to enjoy the stingrays and the tide pool. Please be advised that you will not see the front of Sam in most of these pictures...For whatever reason, I kept taking pictures of his back to demonstrate the joy he experienced with each new exhibit we came upon. Intelligent, I know. But he really was very happy to see all these things, I swear it.....

See?????? There's the happy boy....




After a good amount of time checking out the tide pools and touching pools, we ventured deeper into the aquarium. Basically, Sam would run up to a tank, take a quick peak, and then run off to another direction. He did this THE ENTIRE TIME we were in the museum. He was like a humming bird zipping from one thing to another. I found myself yelling a lot to make him stay within some kind of proximity. It was useless. I wanted to leave but guilt (plus the $29.95 entrance fee) kept charging me forward. The only time Sam settled down was when we arrived to the gigantic underwater feeding tank:

This was due to the fact that Sam was fascinated by this man:

We must have been there for twenty minutes or so. After a few minutes, Belle started to get angry. I had forgotten to feed her....probably because I was completely distracted by the fear of having my child abducted. This is what she looked like:


And this was Belle after I fed her...so pretty:



We looked at more fish and then ventured into more areas.


This bone-white crocodile is for "real". The first time we saw it, we thought it was fake but Sam watched it for an eternity and told everyone around him in his loudest possible voice when it moved and what body part had moved. Thrilling, I know.

The Academy has an incredible outdoor "living" space on its roof. It contains all kinds of vegetation that are nestled on the roof top and that provide nutrients to the various animals in the building. It's cool.


Towards the end of our visit, Sam had turned into some crazy type of disobedient child. Below is evidence of him ignoring the sign that said "Do not climb on rocks or hang on glass. Thank you."
Shortly after he ignored the sign, he decided to ignore me and ran off in a direction I couldn't find. He was missing for about thirty seconds. I was all kinds of scared. It was horrible. I finally found him and promptly yanked him by the arm and took ourselves outta there. After ten seconds in the car, he fell asleep.

I won't be visiting the Academy of Sciences for a very long time...at least, not without back up...Jedi-like back up.