The large umbrella turned up after all, so I hauled my 18 pound babylump to the Met. It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be–I didn’t get bone-tired until the way home, which meant about 4 hours of fairly easy hanging out. I ate a salad while Chico flailed at my peas (he still has the tongue-thrust reflex so no solids even if we wanted to start ‘em). I hit the bathroom with him still strapped on (he thought the toilet flush was pretty freaky). And then we took a walk. We were not so into the timepiece exhibit, either of us. Sure, there were some pretty clocks, but too fancy for my taste. We enjoyed the medieval icons, or at least I did. Then again, that’s my favorite section. No clue why. Byzantium was a relative success–a couple of ostrogothic brooches caught Chico’s eye and I’m a fan of reliquaries–but nothing anywhere even close to…
Greco-Roman statuary. After a brief turn through several rooms of Greek pottery (’look dude! Another urn.’) Holy cow, we sidled up to a big marble dude and Chico’s gaze went upward while his jaw dropped. It must have been the hugest butt he’d ever seen (I keep mine covered.) And so we spent the bulk of our browsing time meandering between giant dudes, goddesses, and the biggest hit, disembodied heads. And I’ll tell you what, folks are pretty amused by a monsterbaby strapped to the chest of a short woman making google eyes at big marble heads. I took him downstairs to nurse, somehow missing the cavernous Family section and settling instead for a bench in front of which 75 high school students stood minutes after I sat down. It’s the first time I’ve been self-conscious nursing in public, which is ironic since I don’t think any of them where even paying attention.
We started melting down in the New Guinea section, an acoustical dream for a baby what has something to get off his chest, and held it together until the subway station where I desperately attempted to not be That Mommy whose child screams uncontrollably in the enclosed space of the subway at rush hour.
All in all, it wasn’t half bad. I had a really good time checking out art with the wee one, and he’s totally manageable in the Baby Bjorn for 4 hours (5 was pushing it.) Next time I’ll take a little purse instead of the big diaper bag which I ended up checking. And I felt so free and breezy compared to all of the other moms walking around with huge carriages and bags and the like.
Then when I got home, Chico and I culled a foot-high stack of magazines to be removed from the premises (folks dig through them in the trash rooms so most end up reused before recycled) and moved our to-be-filed papers from an ugly accordion file to a magazine holder thingie which will not make me cringe sitting out on my granite-top. This means that I am almost done with number 4 on my great cleaning list. Huzzah! Still haven’t uploaded the pictures because I was too busy gallivanting through the museum like some sort of person with culture.
