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If you are ever going to rent a kid, 4-year-old Jackson Andrews is the best deal you could possibly get. He is at the just the right height that I can reach down and run my fingers through his dark brown bowl-cut, and his puckered lips form an "o" as if he is always on the verge of asking a serious question. Jackson is a pint-sized human sponge who is always up for an adventure.
I had heard rave reviews of the Mississippi Children's Museum since it opened in December. It appeared that having a kid was an unspoken excuse for adults to go. I don't have children of my own, so I asked my friend Stacy Andrews if I could rent his youngest son for the day. Jackson had never been to the Children's Museum, and Stacy told him it was kind of like going to the art museum, except you get to touch things.
When I picked Jackson up from his Fondren home April 2, he presented me with a letter he wrote with a blue marker. This was the special code we needed to get into the museum, he told me. He had no idea what awaited him.
"That looks like a place where they built something fun," Jackson said about the checked green-and-blue building with an entrance that looks like it's made of giant pipe cleaners. Jackson then ran, jumped and skipped on the splash pad outside the museum.
As I waited to buy tickets, the changing blue, green and red lights on the museum's floor mesmerized Jackson, and he promptly called them "lifesavers."
Just about every inch of the museum has something to capture a child's imagination. It's as if the architects designed the place more for parents to keep short-attention-span children occupied while they stand in line.
The museum was hosting a puppet show that morning, but Jackson had no interest in watching it. His big, blue eyes surveyed the museum's 20,000 square feet of exhibits from the third-floor balcony, and we got a head start over the 300 parents and kids who were watching the show in the exhibition hall.
"Could this all really be for me to explore?" he appeared to be thinking. Jackson had entered an entire world made for kids only. He was the boss and could do anything.
We started at the museum's "World at Work" section where Jackson operated a crane and moved logs in the forestry exhibit. I'm not sure if wearing a miniature hard hat and vest is a requirement to operate the crane, but it sure looked cute on him. While Jackson likes construction, he's more of a liberal-arts kind of guy and requested we make our way to the hands-on music and arts "Express Yourself" section.
Parents should plan on many detours on the way to their intended destination—especially when kids see the long-winding water table in the center of the ground floor with various its levers and squirt guns. The water table is also where a good kid can turn bad. Luckily, Jackson wasn't interested in seeing how much water he could remove from the water table, but lots of others kids were. Jackson was too busy designing his own sailboat and learning about water currents.
By noon, a sea of children filled the interior of the museum, which has had about 60,000 visitors since it opened last December. The noise level increased with excited shrieks and tantrums. To beat the crowds, museum marketing director Elaina Jackson suggests visiting Wednesday afternoons. Sunday afternoons are also slower. Tuesdays and Thursdays, the museum blocks off an entire section for toddlers to play during "ABC Come Play with Me," at 10 a.m.
The museum's "Outside the Lines" exhibit is a dream come true for tactile learners. In seconds, Jackson was wearing a red smock and eagerly grabbing fistfuls of washable tempera paint as he finger-painted a poster-sized mural. When he was done with his masterpiece, a museum staffer handed Jackson four marble-like "bullets" to shoot a paintball gun into an encased canvas.
"Is it scary?" Jackson asked while he adjusted his oversized goggles. After the first shot, Jackson was a determined marksman who aimed for his target with confidence.
Afterward, we waited about five minutes in line to make spin art. Jackson carefully squeezed bright green, orange and black paint bottles onto a rotating card and was in awe of his splattered creation.
In the "Healthy Fun" section, kids can climb through tunnels and discover a larger-than-life gastro chamber. A trip through the chamber includes life-like digestive noises (which makes children giggle and yell "ew!"), a stomach theater, and a walk through a small and large intestine. For Jackson, the life-size stomach was bit too realistic, and he promptly asked to leave once we got inside.
Moms and dads can kick off their shoes also, climb through the tunnels and play. The "Exploring Mississippi" section has historical markers parents can read to their child about the state Capitol, civil-rights heroes, and even catfish, shrimp and cotton.
After two and a half hours of exploring, we had only gotten about halfway through the exhibits. As hunger and tiredness set in, it was easier than I expected to coax Jackson away.
On the way home, Jackson tightly grasped his finger-painted mural and spin art as he struggled to keep his eyelids open. After a nap, Jackson talked about the museum nonstop for the next two days, his father said.
Jackson's wonder made me think of a Eudora Welty quote on the museum's wall: "Children, like animals, use all their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same way all over again."
Mississippi Children's Museum is at 2145 Highland Drive. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $8; free for members and kids under 12 months. Call 601-981-5469, or visit http://www.mississippichildrensmuseum.com.
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