Considering the name of this website, it’s no surprise that my kids are 100% suburban.? They are very much at home in a Target or Home Depot.? They know the difference between Panera and Starbucks.
We are only about 30 miles outside of a large city, Washington DC, but it may as well be 300 miles or some make believe place on television, since we stay mostly within our suburban world.? So we try to expose them to surroundings outside the suburbs, taking trips to the National Zoo or museums.
Last week we went to the National Museum of Natural History.? The museum was interesting enough to The Things.? The dinosaur skeletons are always a big hit.? But by far the highlights of the trip were the city elements we encountered.? To them, it was like an adventure to some far away place.
The adventure began when we drove along Constitution Avenue next to the Washington Monument.? You’d think a 555 foot obelisk would be a site of wonder to a small child.? What really got their attention were all the tour buses lined up along the street.
Look at all those buses!? Where are they going?? Who is driving them?? Are we going in one?
Next came something that they have never imagined could exist.? Not even in the Backyardigans.? I’m talking about the underground parking garage.
In the suburbs, we have large parking lots with huge spaces that easily fit SuburbanDaddy’s minivan.? In this magical place called the city, we drive into a “spooky cave”,? and keep going down, down, down.? They have to get out of the car before pulling in because the space is so tight.? And, SuburbanDaddy needs to push the double stroller up several levels of ramps because there is no elevator within site.
Then, it’s onto the busy streets.? Thing 1 was absolutely fascinated by the crosswalk signals.? 
We were lucky enough to see the ones that have numbers which count down the time remaining to cross the street.? To someone who likes to count to one hundred for kicks, this was the ultimate discovery.
We could have stayed there crossing the street all day and he would have been thrilled.? He would stop in the middle of the street, mesmerized, watching the numbers count down, completely oblivious to the fact that a line of buses and taxis were waiting to run us down as soon as the light changed.
If it weren’t such an ordeal – traffic, parking, meltdowns -? we would go into the city more often.? I wonder if the urban parents take their kids to the suburbs, and watch the wonder on their faces as they push a shopping cart across a Costco parking lot the size of a city block?
Funny stuff Dave. Ah yes, I could easily see Thing 1 being mesmerized by the crosswalk countdowns! I don’t think he’ll ever get tired of numbers!
I remember going to Washington DC when I was about xix years old. It also was the first time I rode a subway. My parents joke about how my brothers and I referred to the Foggy Bottom station as “Froggy Bottom.”
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. We didn’t have subways.
I thought of you at the zoo on Monday. There was a kid in a stroller with a t-shirt that read ‘Thing 3’.
Never thought of it that way, really. Kids have such a small frame of reference that the most mundane things are new and interesting. Nice post.