Sweet November: Children's Museum of the Lowcountry

This morning Jace and I headed out to downtown Charleston to check out the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry. I was a little nervous about driving into the heart of Charleston without a GPS, but Tate had to use it for the day at work, so I went off of **gasp** written directions. Thankfully I found it easily and realized I don't need to rely on GPS to get me everywhere. I'm really starting to feel like I understand how the South Carolina roadways work now. It was my first time in downtown Charleston since we've moved here, which is actually sad to admit. We stayed in Charleston on the bay when we were house hunting but since moving to the 'burbs haven't made our way down there just yet. I suppose it's mostly because we're waiting to explore when the weather is warmer or when we have visitors. Anyways... it was beautiful down there, very historic and southern feeling.

The road that the Children's Museum is off of is the same road that many scenes from the movie The Notebook were filmed. The road is called King Street and if you're familiar with the movie, there is an old movie theater that they go to on their first date and then they lay in the middle of the road watching stop lights on their walk home. Anyways, you may not care... but I thought it was very cool to see where one of my favorite movies was filmed. That entire movie was filmed in Charleston in various gorgeous locations, so now I want to watch it back just to appreciate the scenery more and get some ideas of places to check out!

We met a few new mom and toddler friends at the museum, which was alot of fun. It's always nice to talk to other moms in between chasing after your kids. The Children's Museum of the Lowcountry was in an old building and was only one floor, which was sort of strange to me after being at the four story modern Children's Museum in MN. Although it was small it was perfect for kids 1-4 years old. Jace can only handle so many exhibits before he gets overstimulated and tired anyways. We spent about two hours there and were having a great time when all of a sudden Jace ran into the edge of a clear plastic mini wall with his eye. Hard to explain, but painful to watch. He ran into it full force and the collision was so hard he actually flew backwards onto his back and started bawling. Jace is usually pretty tough when he falls and if he cries it's for about 30 seconds and me simply picking him up calms him immediately. Well, not this time. He cried for about 3-4 minutes straight, which feels alot longer when you're in the moment. I felt horrible, but I'm happy to say he recovered very well and only has a minor egg bump on his eyebrow.

After his little collision it was safe to say he'd had enough of the museum and was ready to chill out for a bit. We got back in the car and headed home to Summerville. By this point I was starving (what's new) and had some cash burning a hole in my pocket so I took Jace out for lunch at the Waffle House around the corner from our house. We split an angus cheeseburger and their famous hashbrowns. Jace surprisingly wanted nothing to do with the hashbrowns and was instead completely obsessed with the burger. My child? Showing meat in his face instead of fried potatoes?? You're kidding.

All in all we had a great day and only wish we could have explored downtown Charleston a little more before leaving. This weekend we'll be spending quite a bit of time down there when Tate's sister, Mandi, is in town. We're planning on going to the beach, going out for fresh seafood on the bay, hitting up the aquarium, and taking her to our favorite mexican place for fajitas. Other than that, we're playing it by ear and seeing what she would like to do. We already have visitors on the books for the next 4 months in a row. That's very exciting because it's good to always have something like that to look forward to each month.

Even though the Children's Museum here was a little small and frumpy, Jace loved it and we'll definitely be going back and maybe even getting a family membership to save money on admission. His favorite parts of the museum were the golf ball room, the water table room, and the pirate ship. I took a few pictures, but you can always tell Jace is having a good time when he refuses to look at the camera and smile... it's like he's saying "Too busy mom, leave me be!"