A little culture, please

Yesterday was Ellie's first trip to a museum. My dear friend Melissa decided to celebrate her birthday by visiting the Florentine Monumental Statue exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in the district. So I packed Ellie into the car and we made our way downtown to get her first glimpse at real culture.

Luckily, it being MLK day, parking was free and we snatched an open spot on Constitution Ave after only 5-10 minutes of looking. (Thank goodness for the aggressive driving and parking tips I had to pick up while living in Cambridge, MA.) As it took Melissa and the other people I was meeting much longer to find a parking spot (at least 30-45 minutes), I had some free time to sit in the large rotunda of the museum and look at the sculpture fountain.

Ellie was wide awake and didn't seem to want to let me sit down. So I stood in front of the fountain and crouched in order to hold her at eye level to the many pretty flowers that surrounded the fountain. After a while, a lady came up to me and said something to the effect of "You are a WONDERFUL mother - exposing your baby to culture and the arts. I just wanted you to know I am so impressed."

Outwardly, I thanked her and told her I appreciated her comment and wished her well. Inwardly, I chuckled. As if my taking Ellie to the museum is going to affect whether she is cultured or not. Don't get me wrong, I do think it's important to bring children to museums, drama, etc...WHEN THEY ARE OLDER. At 10 weeks, Ellie couldn't tell the difference between a Monet and a finger painting done by me. And I am sure that our little jaunt was quickly forgotten by the time we left the building.

That being said, it was very nice of the woman to say, and Ellie was wide awake the entire 2 hours we were at the museum and really did seem to enjoy looking at everything - not only the art, mind you, everything. The beauty of babies is that they stare at everything because everything is new and special at first. We had a great time. And the best was that Melissa wanted to hold Ellie the whole time - yippie!