Sunday, April 29, 2007

Ah, Bodies

Yesterday, Mr. Swizzle, Twinkle and I went to see Body Worlds. Yes, we took our almost 6 year old to Body Worlds. After 2 friends saying they wanted to go, but didn't want to take the kids, we started wondering if we're bad parents.

But, Twinkle has been begging to go. For the last few months, she has been bringing home body books from the school library. We showed her pictures of the exhibit online and she is fascinated by everything going on inside her. And why not? How cool is it to be able to show the girl "that's what your heart looks like. That's what your lungs look like if you smoke cigarettes. That's what they look like if you don't. See the difference between the athlete's body and the obese body?" It was great. Of course, we didn't dally and read everything, because hey, she's 5. She can look and see everything and not worry about what's on the sign because we'll summarize for her.

She thought the body that only had it's nervous system was "yucky" and the display of the face from the inside was "a little scary", but other than that, she wanted to see everything.

And, hey, as a bonus...no nightmares last night.

Think of me what you will. I know there are people that think such an exhibit is unsuitable for anyone, much less children. I am not one of those people.

I think it's incredible that once upon a time, doctors didn't even know what the human body was like on the inside. And, think about it, your body is the one thing that you have with you at all times. And it's such an alien thing. It's amazing what our bodies do for us everyday that we don't even think or know about.

I think that after our visit yesterday, Twinkle has a better sense that she is "fearfully and wonderfully made."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think it's great that you all went - the boys have no desire to go & I guess Mr Incredible & I have seen our own share of the insides of humans. There used to be a fun exhibit at a Museum in Houston, where you could walk through a simulated human body - as the food, or the blood, etc. Don;t know if its still there - took the nephew once.