Napping with the Fishes

M-N's on vacation this week, and yesterday it was in the mid-60s and unusually pleasant, so we decided to visit our friend Meg at the New England Aquarium downtown. Little Dude began the afternoon by thoroughly enjoying the subway ride. He even knew to hold on to the pole. However, even though it was the Red Line (probably the cleanest), we had to advise him against trying to eat the pole.

Then, in a miracle of Boston ingenuity, we realized the aquarium is more or less located on the rarely used and difficult to get to Blue Line, and to get there we'd have to change from the Red to the Orange then to the Blue. With a stroller and the MBTA's pee-rific elevators, that adventure might take 20-30 minutes. Or, we could get off the Red at Downtown Crossing, walk 10 minutes through the financial district, and be there quick and easy.

Meg gave us a tour of the jellyfish exhibit, but Little Dude was more interested in the throngs of screaming kids running around. Jellyfish are ok, but they're quiet killers (like radon?). He was also quick to point out the flagrant violations of the "no strollers among the jellyfish" rule, though Meg didn't seem interested in booting any families from the aquarium.

Later, we got up close and personal with a huge catfish (pictured), some mean-looking penguins, and lots of, well, fish and stuff. As the boy has become increasingly mobile, we have to be careful about him lunging from our arms into an open tank. There's a huge circular tank in the middle of the aquarium, with sharks and sting rays and, well, other fish, and on the top floor it's open where divers jump in to feed them. I was worried for a minute about Little Dude jumping in there, but then I saw that there were a bunch of sea turtles, and I know from a documentary I once saw that sea turtles are like Australian surfers riding the ocean's current, eager to help out a wayward soul.

Our last visit was to the sea lions (pictured). Meg said she got a kiss from one recently, but he didn't seem all that interested in her yesterday. But then, he was with his sea lion woman, so you know, you have to act cool.

After a stopover at Fajitas & 'Ritas for burritos and not 'ritas, we headed home, and this time the boy had a whole rush hour train full of people to show off for. As it turns out, people have trouble keeping their mean subway faces on when presented with a smiling baby. Fish, they don't seem to care.