Aquarium adventures

Julia and I just had the following conversation in the car:

JULIA: Mama, do you remember when I called a loser a nut tree?
ME: When you called a loser a nut tree?
JULIA: Yeah. Wasn't that silly that I called a loser a nut tree?
ME: I don't remember that. When did you do that?
JULIA: Yesterday when I saw those losers, I called them a nut tree.
ME: What losers did you see?
JULIA: The ones I saw yesterday.
ME: But, I mean, where did you see losers?
JULIA: Um, the ones I saw at the mall.
ME: Oh. Julia, do you know that a loser really means someone who loses something, like someone who is NOT the winner? So the poem is called "The Loser" because he loses something, his head. But really, loser doesn't really mean someone with no head.
JULIA: (Silent for a minute.) But is a loser someone who loses his hands?

Yeah. She just doesn't get it.

Now, we didn't actually go to a mall yesterday and see losers, but we did spend the afternoon yesterday going into Boston and visiting the Aquarium. We had a really nice time, although there were a few challenges. Here is a synopsis of the afternoon: We parked the car in Newton Highlands and walked down to the T. Got on the train heading into Boston, which was really exciting for both kids, even though they had both been on the T before. Madeleine conked out cold about 2 minutes before getting off the train at Government Center, so instead of Ethan putting her in the backpack carrier we'd brought, he ended up carrying her cradled in his arms through the streets of downtown Boston so she could have her nap. I walked holding Julia's hand, and she skipped along in delight, singing made-up songs at the top of her lungs, happy as a clam, except for when we walked down a street that was undergoing construction, at which point she completely freaked out about the diggers and made me carry her. The noise of her shrieking over the sound of the construction vehicles miraculously did not wake Madeleine. We got to the Aquarium and the line for tickets was ridiculously long; we waited at least a half hour. Julia started to lose it, but luckily I had packed a snack pack of Goldfish, which kept her at bay. Madeleine slept through most of the wait in line, until an announcer came over the loudspeakers in his loud booming voice, which startled her and woke her, so she was transferred into the backpack carrier. We finally got into the aquarium and had a great time looking at all the cool sea creatures in the enormous fish tank. I had assumed Madeleine would LOVE seeing all the fish through the glass, and I was right; however, the thing I didn't think about was that EVERYTHING at the aquarium would be new to her, so she seemed to be equally fascinated with seeing the huge crowds of people milling about and didn't seem to realize that the fish were the main attraction. But she spent most of the afternoon gazing up, down, and around in wonderment:



Julia loved seeing the different fish, especially the sharks - that is, until one swam by VERY close to the glass, causing her to clutch on to me and say, with increasing nervousness and urgency, "Mommy. MOMMY. MOMMY!" We also enjoyed seeing the penguins and the jellyfish, and when we announced it was time to go, Julia decided she didn't want to leave and wanted us to leave her at the aquarium instead. A quick, "Okay, bye Julia" solved that issue, and we headed out and went to look at the boats on Boston Harbor. Julia was out of her mind with excitement seeing the water and the boats, and pranced around the docks twirling around and probably interrupting the peaceful water-gazing of all the people sitting silently around us. One such person did offer to take a family photo of us, which we appreciated, although Madeleine wasn't interested in participating when there were so many cool, shiny things to look at out on the water:



After the boats, we started our walk back to the train, me holding Julia's hand again, and her becoming increasingly insistent that I was hurting her finger by holding her hand. When I asked her which finger, she showed me, and I saw a big splinter, explained that we would take it out with tweezers when we got home, causing her to fuss on and off for the rest of the trip home about not wanting us to use tweezers on her. I had the fun experience of trying to nurse Madeleine on the train ride home with only a little burp cloth to cover up with, but all in all it went pretty smoothly. We got home, extricated the splinter, Ethan cooked some of his delicious beer chili, Madeleine screamed through dinner, Julia made faces of disgust as we insisted she eat at least some of her chili, the kids went to bed, and Ethan and I kicked back to enjoy our current, very exciting version of a date night: drinking some Greek wine and watching the DVR of the Biggest Loser. The contestants are all headless.