Night at the (home) museum

Good morning! Mother’s Day is just 12 days away. Book that brunch reservation and make sure you use a different Amazon account to buy them that last minute gift!

Activity of the week

Night at the (home) museum: Museums are notoriously not the most kid-friendly places to visit unless the museum is specifically focused on engaging with kids (like the National Museum of Play in Rochester or the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis). So, make the idea of a museum interesting to kids by putting them in the driver’s seat and letting them make their own museum with you. You’re never too young to be a first-time docent. Follow the steps below to make an at-home museum:

Step 1: Pick out the items for your museum - Each person gets to pick 5 things at home that they want to add to the “museum.” It can be favorite toys, clothes, family pictures, books, foods, tools or anything that you and your kids want to talk about. You can also make art at home, or use art from school.

Step 2: Use household items to display your art - You can use chairs, boxes, pillows, walls or any place you have available to display your items. That’s your museum wing.

Step 3: Title each work of art and give it a description - For each item on display, write a title (and add a short description if you want) on a post-it or piece of paper. If the kids are on the younger side, ask them what they want to write, and write it for them. After writing the title and description, place the post-it or piece of paper beside the related work of art.

Step 4: Show and tell - Invite a family member or friend to the museum, and talk through all the items in the collection, or record a video to share with others.

If you want to take things outside, and go to a kid-friendly museum near you, search for one here: https://findachildrensmuseum.org/

Book of the week

Pizza!: An Interactive Recipe Book (Cook In A Book) by Maya Gartner is an easy to follow, no food required, interactive cookbook for kids. As a New York Magazine reviewer commented, “It’s like letting a toddler cook, but without the mess.” But if you can muster the courage of a dirtier kitchen, then you and your kids can bring the cookbook to life by making pizza for dinner. The recipe is as simple or as complex as you want it to be. It can be enjoyable getting the kids involved in household activities like cooking. Exchange picking up toys for cleaning the counter after you cook together using the recipe in this book. You’ll even have edible pizza by the end of it. Maybe.

Stat of the week

It’s questionable to call this chart a “stat” and even more dubious that it has any practical application. Anyways, this is a periodic table of elements based on whether or not your child (or any human) could lick it.

Thinking about tomorrow, today

Kids are naturally curious, and they exercise that curiosity by asking questions. Those questions are a gift—a gift that inconveniently shows up right before bedtime. And, if they haven’t already, at some point kids will start asking questions about your own childhood, and, soon, the story of everyone in your family.

As it becomes more common for folks to move further away from where they grew up, there are fewer chances to hear family stories from relatives.

So to help get the ball rolling, after you’re done reading this newsletter, find a time to call a close family member or a friend that you consider family, and ask them questions you’ve always wanted to know about them. A few questions you could ask are:

• “How did your family spend time together when you were young?”

• “What’s your fondest memory from your childhood?”

• “What are you most proud of?”

If you’re a Millennial, you can just text them, too.

It sounds simple, but it can be difficult to get started. A card game like Tales can break the ice. Tales was invented by a guy after he recorded an interview with his grandmother to capture her life stories before she passed. He realized these conversations with family and friends are hard to do out of the blue, but are worth doing. So, he made the card game to help others build deeper connections with loved ones through specific prompts.

Everyone has a story to tell. Take a cue from kids, ask your family questions about their history, and let your family tell their story.

Document the stories (on a notepad, over video, whatever works for you) so, one day, you can share it with your own kids when they start to ask about your family’s story.

Parenting-ish Headlines

• Sex scenes in movies are making a comeback. Get excited for awkward silences during family movie night!

• In 2023, the average birth per woman was 1.62, according to provisional data — down 2% from 2022. This is the lowest rate on record, ever since the government began tracking births in the 1930s.

• Don’t check your carseat with these airlines. They are literally the worst when it comes to losing luggages.

• Bark Air, a 100% real dog-centric airline, will launch its first flight in May. This is great news for parents of puppies looking to move their doggos cross-country.

We’ll google it for you

Do you have a “tenured friend”? A tenured friend is anyone in your life that’s just locked in for the rest of your life, no matter when you became friends or what bumps in the road you’ve had together. You could talk once a day or once every few years. There are no requirements other than they’ll be with you to the very end and demand a place on your Mount Rushmore of friendship.

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