Butterflies Are The Coolest

Last fall we went to the American Museum of Natural History for the first time and fell in love with it. My dad, because he is awesome, got us a family membership for Christmas. Yesterday, we finally got there again. My original post here was going to be about the top ten things to see there, or how to help your kids enjoy museums or something to that effect.

That was before we went to the Butterfly Conservatory.

Now you are stuck with an entire post about how freaking cool butterflies are and how you should get to the museum before June 22nd, when the exhibit closes (though it's apparently an annual exhibit, so you can always go next year.)

We met the guy on the right immediately upon walking into the vivarium. 

"Vivarium" means indoor enclosure for raising live plants and animals. I feel like I should have known this already, but I didn't. 

Hot Guy would like a butterfly vivarium in our dream house. This one was like a very hot

greenhouse filled with tropical butterflies. I could handle that. Especially if I could make up names for all the butterflies, since I failed to retain any of that information from today. 

I tried to photograph them flying around. I failed, for which I'm blaming my camera and not

my inability to capture action shots. Thankfully, for as many as there were flying over head, there were almost as many pausing to rest. I want to call this butterfly "Ebony and Ivory". Is that song in your head now? 

I want this  butterfly to be called, "Darthfly", but I would settle for "Gothfly".  

They had a bunch still in their pupal stages, we got to see one emerge. 

We all had butterflies land briefly on our heads, but then this one landed on Hot Guy and would not leave. The butterfly kept using her (it could have been a boy, I have no idea) proboscis to poke at Hot Guy like he was a fruit to be eaten. Because butterflies do not do something as potentially gross as chew food, they just drink liquid through their proboscis. Like I imagine supermodels do. 

And then ANOTHER one landed on Hot Guy. He is like the butterfly whisperer. Or he used magical butterfly attract-er soap in the bathroom. Or something Poor Ironflower wanted one to land on her hand so badly. But they just wouldn't. They only loved Hot Guy. 

Well, Hot Guy and my butt. One landed on right in the middle of mine, I was kindly informed by people behind me. Hot Guy took a picture, but I'm not sharing it with the internet. Anyway, what would you name this butterfly? I keep thinking "Pucci", like that designer that made all those colorful outfits in the '60s. 

Wandering Wednesday: One Teeny Tiny Part of NYC

That's right, it's the Wednesday after Labor Day and my kids STILL haven't started school. Which would be a lot more tolerable if the pool was still open. Or I had a nanny. Or I was homeschooling them and not just waiting around for our real schedule to start.

Anyway, we went to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC as one of our staycation days this week. It was really at my dad's insistence and because of his assistance (you should follow him on Twitter). In spite of morning grumpiness and my lack of preparation ( I did not write out an itinerary, or even make notations on a map printed from the web site - I have turned into some kind of slacker this summer), we had an excellent time.

We'd been in the Museum for a while at this point, I had to figure out how to read the map before I remembered to take pictures. 

Hot Guy explains something I don't understand. I probably should have listened instead of taking bad pictures. 

The earthquake map is super-cool. And a little scary. 

See that large shape in the background? It's the blue whale. It is fucking awesome, despite the photographic evidence to the contrary. 

The manatee looks very real. 

So does the polar bear. And somehow bigger than the one at the Bronx Zoo. 

Ironflower by her beloved dolphins. 

Lovebug being a dolphin. 

This is stibnite. I had never heard of it before, but now I want some. 

This doesn't really need a description, right? 

Oh yeah. I recommend having brunch and then go. I brought snacks, which you really weren't supposed to do, but they weren't enough to keep the crew happy so we broke down and went to the food court. Behold the most expensive slice of pizza in New York. 

I swear Lovebug was better about not touching things when he was 3. 

Every time I see a photo of myself I think, "Who's that bitch with my family?" And then I realize that what I think I look like and what I actually look like do not match. 

So cool. 

Hugmonkey was starting to get done with things by this point. 

I promise I'll fix the eyes before I print this picture. 

This room reminded Ironflower that she used to LOVE dinosaurs. Both big kids had imaginary Allosaurus friends and Ironflower also had Tina Triceratops.