Springfield Quadrangle

On Friday, I decided that Tyler and I needed to have a "Mommy and Ty-ty" day. I did this for a few reasons. The biggest one is that my baby is going to be 4 (!) in a few weeks and it seems that over the last month he has matured like no other! Another reason is that with my upcoming job move, I will not be able to just take a day off for a few months. The last reason was probably the most important one for Tyler-- the Science Museum has a special exhibit in town and despite it being there for the summer, we just never made it! It is called "Hatching the Past" and is all about dinosaur eggs!

On Friday morning Tyler and I headed out on our own after a leisurely morning getting dressed. That does not happen very much around here during the week! we stopped and got coffee for Mommy and a doughnut for Tyler at Dunkin Donuts and then drove to downtown Springfield. I t was great inside the museum! There was hardly anyone there and because we had seen most of it already, we knew exactly where we wanted to visit! Of course we stopped in "Dinosaur Hall" and visited the Tyrannosaurus Rex model and the Stegosaurus fossil. Then we went into the "African Plains" and listed to the animal sounds and saw all the stuffed wild animals. Our favorite was the Warthog! The elephant was pretty impressive, too. Tyler was very happy to remind me that he was on one once and it was just as big as the one in the museum (I guess she forgot that I was right behind him on the elephant ride!).

Then we found the special exhibit. We were the only ones there and that was totally awesome! Tyler was able to go as he wanted between all the display cases and look at what he wanted to without having to fend anyone off! He had a great time playing archaeologist in the Sauropods eggs nest:

He also loved to look at the fossilized dinosaur in the egg:
When we finished with the egg exhibit, we made our way down to the "hands-on" exhibit area where we did dinosaur puzzles and didn't have to share with anyone else!
It was such a beautiful day outside that we took a walk to the Dr. Seuss garden. I had visited here once before when it first opened in 2000 and thought that Tyler would love it. For anyone who does not know, Theodor Giesel Seuss spent a lot of his life in Springfield, Massachusetts and some of the books he has written are in actual reference to places around town (Mulberry Street really exists!).

As soon as we walked up to the statues, Tyler immediately wanted to go and see Horton:
He also spent time with Max, the Grinch's dog and with the Lorax. On our way out, we stopped by to see a little turtle named Mac and his buddy Yertle:

I really could not have asked for a better day! It was really wonderful to be able to go out with him and spend time like we did. I know that I will have many more days like this to look forward to in year number 4!