My unscientific study has pegged the sweet spot at 4-8 years old. This window of time is where you and your kids are getting the most out of the family excursion to zoos, caverns, rodeos, Disney World®. There are of course some things like amusement parks that have a wider span, but the 4-8 period is where it is fun for everyone and the kids are big enough to participate - in my completely unsubstantiated opinion.
We have gone and seen some things in the past year with Benjamin, but it had always been Emily and Dale taking in the sights - oh, and we have a baby with us. Benjamin is 11 months now and his mind has shifted into "sponge mode" where he is curious about everything. So we spontaneously hopped in the car a few weekends ago and went to the Dallas World Aquarium - side note it was about 80 degrees at the beginning of January. Take THAT East Coast!
It has been about 15 years since I have been to an aquarium, and a majority of my experiences were overseas in Asia. So things that are exotic here in Dallas were like catfish over there. And I've always known aquariums to be 90% fish, 10% not-fish. The aquarium here is about 40% fish, 30% birds, 20% mammals, and 10% gift shops.
So what did Benjamin think about it? Well, his reaction was valuable data in my query above about "how young is too young." He was still too young to really get into it. There were times where sea otters are practically doing a hip-hop dance routine and Benjamin was more
fascinated by the ponytails of a girl standing next to us. The aquarium has a free roaming sloth on display, which by the way is one of THE most bizarre species on the planet, I held Benjamin right up to Mr. Sloth and the look on Benjamin's face read, "Eh, what else you got?" He also didn't get any of my Goonies references.There were a small handful of moments in the main open atrium where birds and monkeys are flying/swinging back and forth that got Benjamin to perk up. One bird actually buzzed us and took roost on a pillar about 2 feet from a very cautious Benjamin. He looked at it, looked at us, looked at it again, and did the swatting motion with his arms for us to make it go away - so I shot it. With my camera.
The best part for me was interacting with Benjamin - pointing stuff out to him and being excited during those moments where he got excited too. I looked at it as nice foreshadowing for those future family outings where he is digging on the surroundings. His babyness did kick in at the end - sleepy, hungry, just done. Which shifts the way you look at exhibits from "Wow, look at the intricate colored striping on this Guatemalan Tree Frog!" to "Yeah, yeah shark, blah, blah stingrays."
I did have a daydream moment (I have these graphic hypotheticals often) when we were looking at this hu-mong-ous alligator. The display was pretty open and we were looking down, so this nightmare scenario began with me turning one direction and turning back only to find that Benjamin had some how made it into the gator cage. My solution was to throw the stroller down into the sand in front of the alligator, grab the nearby fire extinguisher and jump the barrier. You see the stroller would confuse the gator and delay his frontal assault, giving me time to get down there and spray his maw with the flame retardant chemicals, therein blinding him long enough for Benjamin and I to make our escape. The back up plan was to jump around his muzzle and hold the gators mouth shut, rodeo style until someone helped Benjamin out. Hopefully now you will never question my parenting skills. Well, at least not my hypothetical skills.
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