The Wildlife

Look at this mama lemur and her twin babies - amazing!


Maceo doing his best lion imitation.





Lazy lion.


The big beautiful peacock that greeted us when we first arrived.

A Wild Ride

Yesterday was Craig's birthday and we had a great afternoon and evening.

The fun started at the zoo with a bunch of "rides" as well as lots of animals. Maceo was determined to ride the cars, and only after buying my ride tokens (and I might add a spendy ride at $3) did I discover that nobody over 100 lbs. was allowed in the cars. That clearly ruled me out as the passenger in Maceo's car. Thankfully, the cars did have serious lap-belts, so I buckled Maceo in, confirmed with the operator that he would stop the ride and let me rescue him if he started to cry, and stepped outside the gates. I had no idea what Maceo's reaction would be. He looked a bit tentative as I walked away from him, but as soon as the cars started whirling around it was clear he didn't need me. As you can see from the photos, he had a blast and seemed to be quite impressed with the speed (note the sucked-in cheeks indicating major speed) and even got brave enough at the end to go for the classic, "look ma, no hands!" pose.

The Decent

The biggest downhill slope Maceo has traversed. Check out his excitement at the end.

Shopping with Mama

Mama has been in possession of her driver's license for eight whole months and she is finally getting confident enough to drive more than 10 minutes away. In preparation for the "big storm", Mama and Maceo drove outside city limits to the Legacy Place Shopping Mall in Dedham (25 minutes away with some sections of the trip posting a speed limit of 45 miles per hour - FAST) to enjoy a Whole Foods market unlike any in Boston. Huge isles, endless samples, and about 6 "food" stations to choose from when it was time for lunch. Can you believe that we spent nearly 2 hours in the store? Maceo loved saying "hiiiii" and "byee-byee" to every possible person in the store - about 4 times per customer. There was one woman in the veggie section that he seemed to be obsessed with- he must have parroted his greetings about 15 times to her specifically.



In any case, here is a photo of him gazing into the bakery case dreaming...

The Pelican In Action!

Live action footage on the delux Pelican infant sled! A very smooth ride with a clever wind/snow protector which kept Maceo happy and smiling for nearly 90 minutes - the last 30 minutes of which he was completely asleep while his parents huffed and puffed to get him home. We encountered four separate families with babies who seemed quite small (less than 2 years old perhaps...but given the fact that Maceo weighed in at 26 pounds at 1 year old suggests that my baby instincts might be all off) who all wanted the specs on our killer sled.

More Snow Photos: Mama & Maceo

Mama looks pretty scary but they are still worth posting - vanity be damned. Maceo was in 7th heaven.

Snow Day!

The big storm didn't stop us from having fun in Franklin Park this afternoon. After shoveling the world's HEAVIEST snow, we rewarded ourselves with a frolic in the snow. See below for photos - I will be posting some video of Maceo in his amazing sled from Great-Grandma Peggy by tomorrow. Unsurprising to frequent readers and/or companions of Maceo, he thought the sled was perhaps the best thing in the world.

PS. Big thanks go out to Matt and Kat Lane - and Myles Lane - for the amazing hand-me-down snowsuit and booties. If it were not for the Vermonters we would not have such all-terrain gear for Maceo.

Inaugural Trip to the Children's Museaum

Last Friday Maceo and I went to the Children's Museum with our friend's Jen and Owen. Jen and I had no idea whether there would be much for our little guys to do since both are still crawling/wobbly walking (that would be Owen). However,the Boston Public Library has an awesome program where each day at each local branch there are a limited number of heavily discounted tickets to local museums and kid-friendly attractions. So, for $3 per mom/baby combo, we decided it was worth it to head off on an adventure...

Turns out that the museum has zillions of things for the little ones to do - including an entire environment devoted to crawlers. Unfortunately, we discovered that room after we had been thrashing around for a couple hours so they were pretty wiped out.

Below are some photos from the afternoon - as you can see a good time was indeed had by all. I think that Owen and Maceo could have spent the entire time in the room devoted to motion...watching golf balls zoom through various tracks, spiral slides and improvised ski-ball games. Needless to say we plan to return shortly.


Monitoring the ski-ball game.


An incredible structure that spans 3 floors of the museum - these two were not old enough to give it a try but all four of us marveled at the Bilbao-like beauty.


Maceo had some trouble figuring out the point of basketball - he looks as bewildered as mom does when watching the Celtics.


Investigating the track to make sure it is structurally sound.


The aftermath - exhaustion!