This morning J and I had the pleasure of attending Morningstar Access at the Boston Children’s Museum. We had tried to go last month but life got in the way, which made me doubly determined to get there today.

Now, for those not in the Northeast, let me tell you how our morning started out: Monsoon. Heavy winds, pouring rains… it was a mess. A ridiculous mess. However, stalwart soldiers that we are, we went out in it anyway and drove the short distance from our home to the museum to attend the program.

Let me tell you, it was worth it. I’d do it again in a blizzard, in a monsoon, in a hail of frogs…. Whatever the weather was that day, I think J would shuffle on through it to get back to the Children’s Museum!

The wonder of this program is that it is a limited audience situation. The museum opens before regular hours, so that there are 2 hours families with children with special needs can enjoy with their children before the general public attends. Arriving at 8am seems daunting to not morning people yet, when you walk in to such a quiet, wide open museum it’s immediately worth the lost winks of sleep. The program is limited to 100 people, so pre-registration is required (it’s available at the link above). The cost is $7 per person, free if you are already a member of the museum.

And I’d pay the regular $14/person admission for this program.

There was nowhere in the museum apart from closed exhibits that we could not go. J explored everywhere, from the science experiments on the first level (a room full of bubbles AND a room full of ramps? Yes please!) to the Japanese House up on the third level where he fell in love with one of the museum staff. We played with construction trucks on play tables, we threw basketballs into hoops and we peddled a hand bike until it made enough energy to make a machine go. We caught shadow butterflies and we threw shadow marbles….

Seriously I didn’t know there even was this much at the Children’s Museum until we had the opportunity to truly enjoy it today.

Future Morningstar Access dates:

December 26, 2013

January 20, 2014

All sessions are 8am-10am, though you can stay on after the museum opens. We elected to leave shortly after the public came in as J was hungry and donuts had to be procured.