A Review of the Recent Impressionist Exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum

on culture, family, and Uncategorized

There is a new Impressionist exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Here’s what I enjoyed about it:

  1. My mom got me tickets to the Impressionist exhibit and free babysitting! I get to get out of the house!
  2. I get to leave the baby and take the train into the city like I used to!
  3. I get to listen to my own music on the train and I can listen to every song uninterrupted!
  4. I don’t have to wear sweatpants or other clothes that are easily washed!
  5. I get to meet my husband after work and walk to a museum! I don’t have to see if it’s too hot or too sunny during the walk, because I don’t care if I personally get sunburned! I don’t need to stop every five seconds to adjust a wiggling hand or foot in a stroller!
  6. I’m at a museum! An actual museum! There is culture here! There are people listening to smooth jazz and drinking cocktails! They are all wearing clothes that are not at all conducive to baby-wrangling.
  7. The actual exhibit is just ok.  I mean, yeah, Impressionists are cool, but this is maybe too many impressionist paintings. And not all of them are interesting.  Like ,how many pictures of poplars can you paint? 25, apparently. That’s a lot of poplars.
  8. Oh, this one painting is cool. I’m looking at a painting! And not changing a diaper!
  9. There is a woman with a newborn at the exhibit. Oh no, that baby is too cold. Why is it not wearing socks? Newborns should be in long sleeves.
  10.  I remember when my baby was a newborn.
  11. Waterworks.
  12. That’s a lot of scenes of the sun-splashed Normandy coast.
  13. I’m still looking at paintings! It’s been over an hour. I wonder what my baby is doing. I wonder if she is asleep. Did my mom put her in the right pajamas? I laid them out, but maybe she didn’t see them? If my baby is wearing the wrong pajamas, there’s no way she will survive the night.
  14. That’s a lot of ballerinas.
  15. I get to leave the exhibit and go to dinner!
  16. I am at a restaurant with my husband! We are ordering food! There are other non-baby people around, and they are all eating and talking quietly!
  17. We get to eat tasty Thai food and talk quietly too. We talk about the art exhibit. “It was boring, I mean it was ok, but there were only a couple really good paintings. Hey, do you think the baby is asleep yet?
  18. We talk about the baby. Then we eat. We are still eating Thai food and we are still uninterrupted. There is no one screeching from time to time in the background.
  19. We realize we need to get home to relieve my mom. It’s getting late. It’s 8:27.
  20. What a great night taking in sophisticated culture and being completely away from the baby!