The self-styled ‘advocate for the value of play’ celebrates its 19th year with a Birthday Party Celebration on July 31st. Festivities will include carnival games, bubbles, face painting and more as GRCM shows its appreciation to hundreds of faithful supporters.
The event dovetails with GRCM’s newest exhibit, BOXES, which opened May 24.
Paying tribute to the first traveling exhibit the GRCM ever hosted, BOXES lets kids and their adults build anything they can think of out of cardboard. There are boxes of all shapes and sizes — some that can be stuffed and weighted to use as a base for a bigger structure, some that can be cut and ripped, and some remnant cardboard pieces that can be colored, cut, torn and added on to any special creation.
It’s a dragon!
“BOXES embodies the infinite open-ended play style that The Grand Rapids Children’s Museum Mission advocates,” said Jack Woller, Associate Director of the GRCM.
“Guests can build cardboard armor, cities, games and anything that their imagination can come up with.”
As with all exhibits and programs at the museum, this new exhibit is designed to let kids (and their adults) learn through play and stretch their creative muscles.
“Creativity is important to child development, and kids need to be empowered to explore and develop their creativity,” said Woller. “The exploration and experimentation in exhibits like BOXES supports a foundation for learning, invention and scientific discovery throughout life.”
BOXES runs through August, kicking off a year of special events celebrating the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum’s 20th anniversary.
For more information, contact Adrienne Brown at 616.235.4726 ext 204 or visit the website here.
Joy Tatum said she decided Leap Day is a great day for her daughter’s birthday. “It makes it more special,” she said. “She is unique. So, I’m happy.” (Chris Clark | Spectrum Health Beat)
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma and Victoria Mullen
The chances of being born on Feb. 29 are about 1 in 1,461. So for brand-spanking-new Grand Rapids-area babies, Skylar Tyler, Luke VanWoerkom, and Riley Ann Schiefla, the odds were in their favor this year.
Just for the record, there are about 187,000 people who were born on what many call Leap Day, Feb. 29, which occurs only once every four years. Although according to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who took to Twitter to debunk Leap Day naming, the day is not about leaping anywhere. “The calendar is simply, and abruptly, catching up with Earth’s orbit,” according to Tyson’s tweet.
We’re fans of Neil’s just like the next guy, but geeze, what a wet blanket.
Actually it takes the earth 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds to go around the sun. In order to even out the calendar, a day was added every four years. Otherwise our calendar would be off by about 25 years every 100.
The VanWoerkoms said they plan to let Luke choose the day he celebrates his birthday. They might even celebrate two days – from Feb. 28 to March 1- in years when his birthdate is not on the calendar. (Chris Clark | Spectrum Health Beat)
On the plus side, Leap Day babies have an awful lot of freedom with their birthday. Some may choose to strictly adhere to Feb. 29, while others elect to melt in with the crowd with Feb. 28 or March 1. Tatum said her family plans to celebrate Skylar’s birthday on March 1. We’ll have to ask Skylar how she feels about that when she’s old enough to have an opinion. By then, she’ll be either 8 or 2. Or maybe 4 or 1, depending on how precocious she turns out to be.
Aside from these fun facts, what can leaplings look forward to throughout their special lives? Here are but a few of the emotional and psychological benefits:
Leaplings may be buffered from the emotional pressure of aging one year at a time. Instead, they’re reminded only every four years. (But we must take into account petty annoyances, which we address below.)
Some may choose to take advantage of this quirk in time and celebrate their birthdays on both February 28 and March 1 in off-leap years. More cake and ice cream. And maybe more presents, too.
Others make the most of a fabulous thing and pull out all the stops, throwing an amazing party every four years on their real birthdays. One leapling’s parents rented a pony for her when she turned 4 on her first real birthday. And for her 16th birthday, her parents sent a limo to pick her up from school.
Having a Feb. 29 birthday is a great conversation-starter at parties, on first dates, while waiting in line, etc.
Holly Mercer and her husband laughed about the chance they would have a Leap Day baby. “I said, ‘Oh, that will never happen,'” she recalled. “I always go late.” (Chris Clark | Spectrum Health Beat)
On the minus side, there are way too many documented cases of tasteless jokes by well-meaning friends, such as gifts of coloring books and crayons on a leapling’s “real” birthday; being told they look old for their age (e.g., 24, or 6). Etc. In our opinion, these stunts are merely displays of ill-concealed envy.
But life isn’t easy for any of us, and this shouldn’t scare any baby away from being born on Leap Day.
Thankfully, our three little leaplings won’t have to worry about any of these things for a few years. For now, let’s just welcome these little cutie pies into the world and wish them all the best. Being a leapling can be enormous fun, and that’s what we hope for Skylar, Luke and Riley Ann.
My, how time flies — in a blink of an eye, The Grand Rapids Children’s Museum is all grown up.
