A Family Membership plus Caregiver gives Lisa and Juliet a gateway to joyful experiences, endless exploration, and a span of beautiful memories.
Every Thursday, like clockwork, Juliet and her Gramma walk through the doors of the Children’s Museum of South Dakota.
This routine is remarkable for many reasons, but for one—Gramma drives from Vermillion to Brookings each week to take part. It’s Gramma Day after all!
Juliet and Lisa spend each Thursday exploring the Museum during Gramma Day!
Gramma is Lisa Swanson, who is also known as an elementary school librarian, photographer, and piano teacher. But she says her favorite title is “Gramma.”
Lisa is listed as “caregiver” on her daughter and son-in-law’s Matt and Natalie Buenger’s Family Membership to the Children’s Museum of South Dakota. This gives her and Juliet free admission to the Children’s Museum – but that benefit is just the beginning of all the memories and moments they share in this space.
We asked Gramma to share what makes her time spent playing along with us so special. Let’s go!
What is your Museum routine?
Lisa: I started bringing Jules to the Museum when she had just turned 1 year old. I pick her up from daycare and we spend our morning there, going home after a grilled cheese in Café Coteau.
What is your favorite part of the Museum?
Lisa: My favorite thing about this weekly field trip is that Jules doesn’t have a favorite exhibit – she loves exploring everything!
And she doesn’t feel the need to do everything every week – one week she’s obsessed with painting in the Art Studio, then next we’re collecting crabapples in metal pails outside.
Then it’s chasing scarves in the vacuum-tubes room … or serving up lunch to the baby dolls in the Sod House.
We’ve been doing this every week for over a year, AND her parents bring her there outside of Gramma Day … and she is never bored. Ever.
It was a loooong winter, trying to explain why Max was “sleeping” back in his cave and Mama T. Rex wasn’t roaring, but we kept checking. And honestly, it became a great opportunity to learn delayed gratification and the idea of “future.”
Visiting Mama T. Rex and Max is a highlight of every visit to the Museum.
What keeps you coming back to the Museum?
Lisa: It’s an opportunity for us to establish a routine together.
It didn’t take long before Jules began to predict what we were going to do when I greeted her at daycare. After her hello hug, she would look in my face, cock her head and ask, “Seum?” Yes, Juliet! To the Museum!
She got to recognize the route there – the churches, the baseball field, the railroad tracks. We loved the spring when our drive was flanked by pink and white flowering trees. She knows that sometimes there will be big, yellow school buses by the curb, full of eager kids and coolers of sack lunches.
She pokes pieces of bark dust through the holes in the Museum signage out front, and begs me to feed her toes to the hungry frog garbage receptacle by the door—every time.
She learned to bring her membership card up to the friendly face at the desk, and to wait for it to be handed back.
But after that, we step into my next favorite thing about going to the Museum:
It’s an opportunity for Jules to lead our activity.
Knowing there are things she can predict about our morning is good, but knowing that once that membership card is back in Gramma’s purse, she can decide what to do is the Best!
I love this about the Museum – there are so many places in life where we have to say “No,” “Don’t touch that,” “Not for you,” to kids. But not here.
I get to say Yes to everything!
Like I mentioned earlier, sometimes she wants to spend all our time outside, sometimes it’s all spent shopping in the grocery store, or taking care of the pets in the vet (ever heard a 2-year-old try to say, “stethoscope”? It’s adorable.)
Her itinerary is different every time. My only rule: don’t leave the room without me. You have to say, “C’mon, Gramma. Let’s go!” and give me a second to get up off the floor cuz I don’t move as fast as you do, kiddo.
It’s an opportunity for conversation. And experience. And invention.
I’ve been talking with this little girl since she was born (poor girl!), and the Museum has given us SO many things to talk about: naming the items going into our shopping cart, recognizing colors as we paint and squeegee the window in the Art Studio, feeling the soft sand running through our fingers on the spinning wheel, predicting where the scarves will pop out of the tubes or where the balls will plop back into the water.
Climbing the stairs (or sometimes taking the elevator!) to go play with the all the lights and locks on the 2nd floor.
Yes, every lock. On every locker.
I try to grab a few photos/videos every week – and those offer opportunities for conversation, too, cultivating memory of a place where you aren’t, recalling things you did earlier and hope to do again.
Even lunch has been a place for verbal skills to grow – she “reads” Bravo, Avocado to me now as we wait for our grilled cheese, and she is always excited when Mandy pops into the Café to say “Hi” and to give us hints for where to find the ladybug rock after lunch.
What would you tell a family who’s coming to the museum for the first time?
Lisa: Unless you’re taking photos, put your phone away. This place is more than just a place to “entertain” our kids or keep them busy … it’s full of opportunities to play together!
If you can, make time to be there without rushing. It would be easy to spend all day there!
Juliet gives her Gramma a “facial” during a recent Messy Studio.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Lisa: I am so grateful for all the staff I have met at the Museum. They all love what they do and truly enjoy interacting with kids.
I have appreciated the time they take to engage in conversation with Juliet – helping her explore new art media or just asking what she’s going to do today.
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Her itinerary is different every time. My only rule: don’t leave the room without me. You have to say, “C’mon, Gramma. Let’s go!” and give me a second to get up off the floor cuz I don’t move as fast as you do, kiddo.
