The MIM

MIM = Museo Interactivo Mirador (Mirador Interactive Museum) - www.mim.cl.  This is another one of the many fun offerings Santiago has for children, and we went this afternoon to check it out (despite the fact that Jimmy woke up feeling feverish, sore throat, and achy today - prayers needed for him to feel better quickly and for the rest of us to not get the same thing, especially as the kids are still trying to get over a cold..).  This museum is about all different aspects of science, technology, the history of mining in Chile  (huge copper exporter), the senses, etc.  You could say it is comparable to the Exploratorium in San Francisco.  Loads of fun.

The first activity you see upon entering is a giant piano keyboard that kids 5 and under can play with their feet (a la Big).  Landon, loving music as he does, had a lot of fun with it, and the second time we played on it Caleb joined in the fun as well.

<Video: Caleb and Landon playing the piano with their feet >:

I'm sure this is just the first of many arm wrestling sessions Caleb and Jimmy will have in years to come...

Taking a (toddler) break (ie barely long enough to snap this picture!)

By far Caleb's favorite part was getting to be on a construction team that had to work together to build a house out of bricks.  He did really well, considering it was for kids 4+ and he doesn't understand a lot of what the guy was telling them to do (we helped him with that).  Some kids were asked to work on the second level, others controlling the buckets to bring bricks up, some on the crane, and others stacking bricks on the ground level, which is what Caleb did.  He had SO much fun filling his wheel barrel and stacking the bricks!

The (foam) bricks

Laying the bricks to form the walls of the house

<Video: Caleb the construction worker>:

Other kids bringing bricks up to the second floor with a bucket pulley system

When they were done building all the kids went upstairs together and got to throw all of the foam bricks over the walls onto the ground below before going down to stack them all back onto the walls.  They had a great time!

On the way out we ran through these areas of long rubber tubes swaying in the wind.  There were four sections of them.  A fun tactile experience...

Another fun, yet tiring day.  Now to sleep I go, praying I don't get Jimmy's sickies...