Out with the old - Manitoba Children's Museum

Living in a city with some 6 months of winter (more some years), some of the greatest treasures are indoor locations for kids. The primary one in Winnipeg has been for years the Manitoba Children's Museum, which first opened it's doors in 1986. When I was a kid, the Museum was located in an old warehouse in the Exchange District, and I will always remember the old blue locomotive, the grain elevator, and the wheelchairs you could race around in. Today, the Children's Museum has none of those things, but it does have a real diesel engine, a giant tree and nature area, and a cool construction exhibit with trucks, gravel and spraying water.

The Children's Musuem opened up in it's current location in 1994, located in an old train repair building at The Forks Historic Site. It's main, and most impressive, exhibit is a 1952 diesel train engine and a 1910 Pullman coach car. Consequently, this is the only exhibit destined to survive the Children's Museum's huge renovation and update planned for this fall. Because the Manitoba Children's Museum won't be around much longer as we know it, I wanted to make it the subject of the first of my "Love my Winnipeg" postings.


So what is there to love at the current Museum? First up, a great mix of gross motor and fine motor play areas, with lots of adaptability for different age levels, and many benches for moms and dads to hang out on. Great bathrooms complete with kid sized toilets and kid height sinks. A coat area with hooks, hangers, or pay-to-lock lockers. Lots of snack tables, chairs and high chairs, and it is fine to bring your snacks from home. That is one of my favourite things about MCM. It is not a money grab. There are some vending machines and a gift shop, but they are both slightly off the beaten path, so you don't feel like you need to spend more than the admission cost to get in. What is more, memberships are really reasonable, so if you think your family may be a frequent visitor, that is definitely the way to go.

The Manitoba Children's Museum also has classrooms/event rooms that are used for field trips and birthday parties, and sometimes house temporary exhibits like the one about bugs showcased below, where I have fallen victim to the world's largest tick.

At this particular exhibit, sitting down causing the tick to inflate, as if it is filling up with blood. I know you're thinking, "yuck", but 9 year old boys everywhere will think it is awesome.


Visiting the Children's Museum gives me the opportunity to expose my son to a lot of different subjects, and see what he gravitates towards. We can sort of test drive materials, to see what may be a good investment for our own home. We don't have a piano, but the Museum does. They also have a fish tank, a train table, piles of costumes and a felt board. There is chalk and chalk boards, Duplo tables, big wooden blocks and many types of art supplies to experiment with. My son can have all these things without my having to buy all of Toys R Us and move it into my house.


Of course, the best things at the Museum are the ones that no one has at home, like the giant tree slide, the TV studio, the train, and the traffic light. With so much to explore, it is no wonder that Nik suggests most mornings, "Let's go to the museum!"

If you are interested in checking out the Museum yourself, you better get there before doors close for renovations this coming September. Visit their website for more information.

From mall to museum

Checking out flyers on a Sunday morning.

I like to go shopping. I like nearly everything about it. I like looking through the flyers, and driving to the store, and finding the good parking spot, and browsing, and choosing, and having something new. I like to be out with people, with the busyness of a crowd. I like stopping off at one store, and then another. I like the food court.

To my detriment, my husband also likes these things. He also likes looking at things we can't afford, and redesigning our home and wardrobes, and the vacations we take... So, between the two of us, we can create quite a little bit of a financial mess. Being neither ignorant of this fact nor completely irresponsible in our reaction to it, we have tried to make adjustments. My mall-walking has turned to thrift-store hopping, and my shopping habit, while down-scaled, lives on.

I recently read Denise Roy's Momfulness. While there were many parts that I enjoyed, that made me laugh, or that made me go, "hmm...", one part in particular stands out in my mind. Roy tells her readers about a monk being interviewed about his move from Eastern or Western culture. He says that in his country of origin, everything is organized around spirituality and prayer. There are rituals and routines in the lifestyle that support the pursuit of spirituality. Then he is asked about life in his new Western country home and says, "It is hard to live in a society that is organized around shopping."

Organized around shopping... Hardly the motto for an enriching existence, and yet, I see my own lifestyle too much reflected in that statement. I dream over things I find on the internet, I know all the good brands, I read the flyers, I watch the sales, I wait for the next paycheque... But a life organized around shopping isn't what I am setting out to acheive. It certainly isn't the life I want to model for my son, and yet, how many hours has he spent in the stroller or a shopping cart, along on one of my not-too-necessary shopping trips?

The new year has recently begun, and spring is just around the corner. In the spirit of this season of renewal, I am aiming to add more shopping-free outings to our repetoire, and we have done not too badly in the last few weeks. We have continued our once-a-week visits to the local library, and have started taking in the storytime for 2 year olds. Nik recieved memberships to 2 local museums for Christmas, and we have used them each once, so far. This past weekend, we took part in the annual Festival du Voyageur, an outdoor event featuring beautiful snow sculptures, that celebrates Franco-Manitoban history and culture.

It is like detox, though, this fighting the urge to shop. When I dropped off a thrift store donation early last week, I still just HAD to go in and look around. $15 and an armful of stuff later... I am not exactly a beacon of self-control. I try to remind myself of the many reasons there are to hate shopping, first among them being those annoying credit card bill deadlines. I also do not want to be sucked into a lifestyle defined by materialism, determining my worth by the things that I buy.

So, I will keep reminding myself to change our outing destinations from mall to museum, from book store to library, from coffee shop to park. And the flyers are going directly into the recycle bin for a while. No sense tempting fate.

Checking out fossils on a Saturday morning.