Meet Baby Jones

Until last week, Avery’s understanding of common bugs was that they must be annihilated. The method of annihilation may be one’s hand, one of mom’s flip-flops or a fly swatter, but as he understood things, all bugs must be destroyed.

So last Saturday I took Avery to the Philadelphia Insectarium to help him learn more about insects. Ironically, it shares a building with Steve’s Bug-Off Exterminating. The insectarium gift shop even shares the same space as the exterminating store, mixing professional pesticides with insect toys.

I paid admission and walked with Avery to the second floor. Our first stop was the American cockroach exhibit. Hundreds of cockroaches filled a small kitchen.

Then we checked out some mounted insects behind glass.

Afterward, our guide broke out a pack of Bacon and Cheese Crickets and offered me one.

I turned down her offer a couple of times but finally gave in and tasted a freeze-dried seasoned cricket. It wasn’t bad at all. I was pleasantly surprised.

The final stop was the third floor with live insect exhibits.

Avery checked out the Orange Head Roaches in their tank.

Our guide took a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach out of it’s tank and let me pet it. Avery looked on as it crawled around in her hand.

Before leaving, we checked out a Whip Scorpion, which flicks a vinegar-like substance when it becomes threatened.

I picked up a packet of rubber spiders for Avery to play with during the ride home. I think Avery enjoyed himself. He seemed most drawn to colorful images of ladybugs and stayed away from the live insects outside their tanks. Maybe I’ll take him back again in a year or so.

Avery appears to like books.

Immediately after waking each morning, Avery reaches for a book. And he’s not shy about asking to be read to. He’ll hand me a book and pat a chair or spot on the floor, signaling for me to take a seat and read to him. When I finish the first book, he walks to his bookshelf or book basket, retrieves another and asks to be read the next book. And so on.

Tired of reading Avery the same stories, I took the cost effective route and decided to introduce him to the Chester County library.

We went to the children’s section and started browsing the selections. He immediately grabbed a few books off of the shelf and started flipping through them in the aisle.

He grabbed some books from the book bin and brought them over to our sitting area for me to read to him.

He really seemed to like 10 Little Rubber Ducks, so we put that in the stack of books to check out.

I realized that it had been a while since I’d been to a library. I got a library card and took Avery with me to grab some books on business. I was surprised by how quiet he managed to be as I looked up books on business plans and traveled with him to the business section to pick out the books I’d searched for.

With a stack of books for each of us, I headed back to the checkout desk.

We left with some good stuff for Avery:

Last Saturday, Avery and I took a trip to Philly’s children’s museum, the Please Touch Museum.

We got there ahead of the crowd and the short line moved fast. A wizard puppet was entertaining the kids in line, but Avery kept his distance.

First up was the River Adventures exhibit. Avery put on a rubber smock to keep his clothes dry and joined the kids playing with rubber duckies and boats. Others had fun with waves and shooting streams of water.

Next we stopped by a play area with a slide. Avery tried walking down on his first try, but soon got the hang of riding his seat to the bottom.

He had a great time sitting in a race car.

And was mesmerized by a working miniature car wash exhibit. It was hard pulling him away from this one.

But the real treat was watching Avery’s excitement as we lined up to ride the 100-year old carousel.

I strapped Avery in and he patted his wooden companion. After sharing a farm with horses, he was finally atop one. He smiled, looked around and soaked everything in. My son looked really happy up there and it warmed my heart.

As we stepped down from the carousel, the attendant asked us if we wanted to ride again for free. Of course! The last off, we turned around and were the first passengers back on the ride with our pick of horses. I strapped him on a horse that moved up and down and he really seemed to enjoy it.

I had a fantastic experience hanging out with Avery, just the two of us. The following week I could see a change in his personality. My son was happier and felt better about himself because of our time together. From this point forward, I’m going to make an effort to spend more father-son time with Avery.