We had a beautiful day to visit Boston, and my original plan was to park and take the train in because I thought that would be the most fun for the kids, but the train station parking was full so we regrouped and just kept driving. I used it as an opportunity to talk to Max about the word "flexible" in the car, ha. Once at the Boston Common, we headed straight for the swan boats. Max had been on the swan boats when he was much younger but didn't remember it. I was happy and impressed that both boys sat down on the boat and thought it was fun to look at all the buildings around and the islands in the pond. There were a few ducks around so Max thought they might be Quack, Ouack, Jack and MaX (we may have told him that Mac = Max since Jack had his own duck in the book- he will figure out that's not true soon enough because he knows how to read his name). After the swan boats, we rode the carousel which was a little rickety, but the kids didn't mind. Then we headed over to find the ducklings. Max said that was his favorite part of the day and even though this happened a few weeks ago he was talking earlier today about "remember when we ate a little snack next to the ducklings?"
On the way home, we were talking about what we saw and the books and Max referred to Mr. and Mrs. Mallard as "the teachers." After a bit of questioning, I realized that he thought they were the teachers because they are called "Mr. and Mrs." and the only people he refers to this way are teachers. I love child mix ups.
This morning we crossed off another item on our list: strawberry picking. I've been meaning to do this for literally YEARS but berry picking season is so short and it's during one of my busiest times of the year at work so it never actually happens. The boys got a little taste of it when we picked up our CSA last week because we got to pick a small container of strawberries there. They enjoyed it so I decided to take them to a small farm in town called Meadow Mist Farm. It's so small you have to call ahead, but they were very friendly when I called. When we arrived, they gave us a couple of containers and showed us how to remove the blankets from the strawberry patches (they are there to keep the animals from eating the yummy strawberries). Max enjoyed that the farmer told us looking for red strawberries is like a "treasure hunt." Jack really wanted to eat the strawberries but settled for squishing them when I told him we weren't supposed to eat until we pay ;)
After we picked our strawberries- which by the way is the type of activity with a 1 year old that's fun for less than 10 minutes and then you frantically grab as many as possible before he squishes them all- we headed over to check out some of the animals. We got to see a lot of chickens, some sheep and even some baby cows. Max thought it was pretty funny that even baby cows are bigger than him!
Another great thing about the farm is they have special education students on some of their school days. I'm not sure exactly how the program works- I think that the kids are helping to work and also learning at the same time. As a result we got a very sweet high school girl who showed us to the baby cows. Definitely the type of place I like to support!
I'm excited for Eric to start joining us on our summer adventures next week when school gets out for him! Hopefully I'll be back to report how we are doing :) I'm starting to think I might want to add a few extra things to the list ha ha.
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