San Antonio Children's Museum

Though we had originally planned to go to an outdoor playground, this was a welcome respite from the rain and the cold. Since the play areas are on two levels, it was tricky for two adults to keep up with three children, which is especially necessary since there are no security practices in effect to keep your children from wandering out the front door with or without strangers. Limited stroller parking is available, but we had so much stuff along with a sleeping baby that I just pushed the stroller around. The only time I had trouble with that was when Maya took off up the stairs and I couldn't follow. Our cell phones came in handy as I called K to send him up after her while I switched to following Layth around.

There is an airplane upstairs that the children could actually go sit in, with antique airplane seats that had definitely seen better days. The passageway inside was very narrow and Layth got a bloody nose at one point as he (fell? was pushed? ran carelessly?) into the side of a narrow doorway at the rear of the plane. The bubble room downstairs was popular with Layth and Maya. The toddler area is very nice, though the big kids just wouldn't stay out of it. It has a small fish-watching room with large aquariums serving as two of the walls and soft child-sized furniture for resting on. It also has a small, darkened cloud room filled with large pillows for the children to lay on as they contemplate the ceiling painted with cloud-shapes and twinkling with LED lights.

There were plenty of other play areas as well, and though we probably wouldn't go there if we had nice weather for playing outside, we'd certainly consider it again if we needed to get out of the rain, heat, or cold.