Delaware Children's Museum

Lucy loves museums, so when I told her yesterday that we were going to a museum especially for children which was filled with toys, she was very excited.

We drove down to Wilmington in Delaware to the waterfront, a new development of offices, apartments and restaurants, including a huge yellow warehouse which houses this museum. It was just down the block from the US headquarters of Barclays, our English bank! We met up with Rebecca and her daughters Sylvia and baby Miranda.

There was a fantastic climbing tower maze in the atrium which Lucy and I dared to go up while we waited for our friends. It was very narrow in places, and I have to admit I felt a little claustrophobic! I was proud of Lucy who was game for it and did a great job of climbing and working her way through the 'tunnels' and doorways.

There were a number of different areas to look through - 'vehicles' (Lucy's favourite), 'construction' (where we made an arch from soft blocks), 'water' (a huge water table', 'money' and 'the body' (which fascinated Sylvia, especially the poop and pee computer game!).

Our self-built archway and Lucy in her construction outfit

Lucy fixing the car in the workshop - putting a new exhaust pipe on!

My favourite was the art room, where the children could paint at will on easels which were ready set up with paper and paints. A lovely helper would take the finished art work away and put it on a drying rack, and help the kids with their masterpieces. So much nicer than doing it at home where you get everything out and they spend 5 minutes and want to move on to something else!

Lucy watches Sylvia as she creates a really lovely masterpiece

We had a thoroughly great time and would really recommend the museum. On the way home we dropped in at Trader Joe's, a great little organic supermarket which always has lovely prepared food and interesting things to try. Lucy got her own mini trolley/cart which entertained her no end. She even helped to pass just about every item to the checkout lady!

Meltdown on the way home as she was tired and hungry, and we had pushed it a little far on the activity front. But it was worth it to get out and do something different and catch up with our friends.