Spring Adventure

Sonny is obsessed with trains (and buses, bicycles, firetrucks, ambulances, vans, etc.). Every day when we go home from daycare, we pass over the traintracks for the commuter rail and he asks, "choo choo?" We aren't usually lucky enough to see a choo choo so he has gotten used to saying, "No more choo choo" in response to his own question. I decided, after a great suggestion from my advisor, to take matters into my own hands on a recent beautiful spring Friday and told Sonny we were not only going to see a train, but ride in one! We took the bus to the commuter rail station at Porter Square, bought our tickets and waited on the platform for what Sonny now calls the "big choo choo" (so as, I assume, to distinguish it from the T - or the "regular" choo choo). The ride on the commuter rail turned into one of our best Fridays yet.

We took the 9:05am Fitchburg line train from Porter Square to Concord. The ride is about 20 minutes since there are a bunch of stops that are skipped. The conductors were super friendly and helpful and Sonny loved the big set of stairs he got to climb to get on the train. But not as much as he loved having his own seat to sit in and look out the window from. The ride was just about short enough for Sonny's limited attention span/patience and he really liked that the train went "fast, fast!"

In Concord, if you take a right out of the train station onto Thoreau Street and walk about 2-3 blocks, you come to Emerson Playground

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There is a running track, a long jump setup and a very very cool playground with a sand area, great climbing structure (the "rolling bar" slide was a big hit), a climbing wall, swings, etc. We played there for close to 2 hours, despite a preschool class fieldtrip that showed up and sort of took over. There are picnic benches for a snack and a decent amount of shade along the side.

After the playground, we walked back towards the train station and found the new location of Barefoot Books (which had recently - and sadly - closed its Cambridge store). An old favorite of Sonny's in Cambridge, we were very excited to find it again. It is literally across the street from the train station and although they were just opening up, it looks great and looks like they will have story hours, activities and all sorts of fun stuff going on. (www.barefootbooks.com). We ran around the store for a bit and generally wreaked havoc (at least Sonny did, I mostly chatted with the folks working) about which the store employees were totally understanding and sweet.

We were getting hungry so, on the recommendation of the folks at Barefoot Books, we went across the street to Sorrento's Pizza (www.sorrentospizzerias.com) and shared some pizza, followed by pretty awesome homemade ice cream at Bedford Farms next door (www.bedfordfarmsicecream.com). We made it just in time for the 12:10 train back to Porter Square. The train ride back was a bit longer, but Sonny managed just fine either coloring, staring out the window or snuggling in my lap. We decided to walk home from Porter Square since there was no bus coming. Sonny made it the length of the train tracks saying, "Bye big choo choo, bye big choo choo!" before he passed out in the stroller and promptly took a 3.5 hour nap! And so did mama.