This girl rocks and rolls

Like most cities, Cleveland has its share of museums - art, natural history, a planetarium, historical homes, etc.

This summer Grace and I visited two of the more unique museums in our area. The first was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (http://www.rockhall.com). Built in 1995, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located on the shores of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland and is dedicated to recording the history of some the the best known and most influential artists, producers, and music-industry legends. There are permanent exhibits, my favorite being the costumes and memorabilia from famous performers, and temporary exhibits that change to keep visitors coming back. When we visited over July 4th weekend, they were highlighting the Doors, the connection between baseball and music called "Take Me Out: Baseball Rocks", and Pink Floyd's The Wall.









We went to the second museum yesterday. After reading the blog of a friend from Chicago I got the idea that Cleveland must have a Children's Museum, and of course they do! (http://www.clevelandchildrensmuseum.org) We planned a trip up for yesterday which was supposed to be the worst weather day of the week. I figured it wasn't going to be a good day for the pool, so we could explore the museum and work on Grace's walking at the same time. The museum is dedicated to children under 8 years old and you can (and are expected) to touch and play with everything! How cool for kids who are often told not to touch! Basically, the small facility is divided up into four distinct areas:

• a farm room based on Margaret Wise Brown's book The Big Red Barn with stuffed animals, a silo, lots of toy vegetables that might grow on a farm, wagons, and a hayloft;
• a magic room which had a lot of everyday science that seems like magic to kids (electricity, gravity, air pressure);
• a community with houses, an airport, a grocery store, a doctor's office;
• and a weather/water area where they had raincoats for the kids and they could play at a huge water table or see themselves on TV doing the weather report in front of a map.
  

The museum was like a giant daycare with different themes and lots of kids running around. It was a great place for gross motor development and pretend play. Grace was still a little young for it since most of the kids were bigger and not very aware of others around them. She got pushed and squeezed out of some places, just because she was so little. But, I think she had fun and I know she was fascinated by all the other kids!