Side trip

Aquarium junkie that I am, I viewed the car trip home on Sunday that took us right through Cincinnati when Liza was awake and happy as a sign, one that read "Drag your husband to the Newport Aquarium before he realizes how much it's going to cost."

The Newport Aquarium is a nice enough destination, as aquariums go, large enough to have nice exhibits but small enough that you can do a once-over in around an hour, if you keep moving. I'm a sucker for even crappy aquariums, so we would have gotten there eventually, but the real draw on Sunday was a new exhibit they have open this year ... a touch tank full of sharks. Yes, real sharks, with real teeth, where you can stick your hand in the water and pet them. True, the largest shark is maybe four feet long and probably would choke if it bit off more than a couple of your fingers, but it's still a pretty cool idea. In case you were wondering, they feel like fine grit sandpaper ... not smooth like a dolphin, or slimy like a fish. And yes, I touched one of the large ones, not just the little 12-inchers hiding near the water jets.

Liza was better behaved this time than she was during our trip to the aquarium in Baltimore, where I had to sing the same lullaby continuously while constantly moving or she started to shriek so piercingly that I feared the tanks would start cracking. Like the Baltimore aquarium, the Newport Aquarium doesn't allow strollers, so we were stuck with the hip carrier that I've decided Liza hates, because she once again started complaining as soon as she went in. That lasted for about 10 minutes, and for the rest of the hour or so we spent there we either carried her without the hip hammock or let her walk between us, holding our hands.

Liza wasn't so upset this time that she ignored the fish ... she wasn't so interested in any where we had to hold her to look at them, but she liked the tanks where she could stand on her own and bang away at the glass. Yes, I've become the type of parent I used to sneer at, the one who prefers to let her kid bang on the glass rather than listen to the screaming that is sure to happen when they're told to stop.

Liza's looking at a tank full of all the types of fish featured in Finding Nemo, which the aquarium staff thoughtfully flanked on both sides with park benches so the kids could get up close and personal with their cartoon buddies. Liza's never seen the movie, but apparently that wasn't a prerequisite for finding the exhibit entertaining.

Nemo was cool, and she liked walking through all of the underwater tunnels, and she liked the exhibit with the big turtles that swam right next to the glass where she was standing. But her favorite thing in the whole aquarium?

The red velvet bordello-esque round couch in the center of the room full of jellyfish exhibits. The kid could have cared less about the jellyfish, and she didn't even want to look at the uber-cheesy jellyfish chandelier over the couch. All she wanted to do was circle that couch over and over, petting it. And by that point our arms were so tired, Jason and I were ALL about letting her do that.

In deference to the fact that the admission to the aquarium set us back almost $40, I didn't even think about getting souvenirs (although the toddler shirt with the smiling toothy shark saying "Teething bites" was tempting). Since Liza doesn't seem to be that interested in the fish right now, I doubt we'll be heading back to that aquarium again soon, but it's definitely on my list of things to do when she's a couple years older. After all, how many places can you go to pet a shark?