Sunday. What should we do? Should we go to the Secret Garden cafe in the mountains? Should we go to the beach? It was a hot, humid day. The effort of moving made me break out in a sweat, so the Better Half suggested a nice, air-conditioned trip to the planetarium, over an hour away.

2yo L complained loudly for the entire drive. I struggled to keep her entertained with various things I retrieved from the floor. Her rag doll, her shoes, a giraffe-head hood. No go, it was an hour and a half of nerve shattering hell.

BUT once at the planetarium we all cheered up. This was going to be great! Only problem, it was lunch time and we were starving. Right when we got there they were starting the only kid’s show for the day, but it was a 45 minute show and hungry kids are cranky kids. Never mind, the next show at 2pm would be awesome. 5yo J would love it. Cosmic Collisions narrated by Robert Redford. I was so excited. I have never been to a planetarium before. I was like a kid.

A real fake astronaut!

After lunch we returned before the show and wandered around the small museum space, looking at model satellites, space shuttles, lunar landers and rockets. We said hello to the huge astronaut and checked out the photos of various planets, noting they were the exact same photos as in J’s Space edition of National Geographic. The Better Half kindly let me have my first planetarium experience and offered to entertain L while J and I watched the show.

The man selling tickets had warned us that Cosmic Collisions was “not too sciency” but it was serious space stuff. Not to worry, Mr. ticket seller. J loves science. He reads National Geographic. Our second fail for the day. As soon as the lights dimmed and the stars came onto the ceiling, J started to panic. “I don’t like this. I want to leave NOW!” I doubt he would have liked the kid’s show, either.

Once you leave the show you can’t go back in, for the obvious reason that leaving is annoying to everyone else. So that was it, 1 minute of planetarium.

Our mistake was in not explaining to J what we were going to see. He was probably expecting a telescopic view of the sky, not a larger than life floating through space experience. He had no way of processing what he saw when a giant meteor was hurtling towards us. Once I had calmed down (I was really upset and acted very much like a tantrum-throwing toddler), I explained what it was and he admitted to being sad that he missed out.

It was a disappointing day, but a good reminder that reality to a 5yo is not what we always expect. You can’t just assume a child understands what seems plainly obvious to you as an adult.