Riding the Rails

Early last week, our youngest, D, said he wanted to take the train to visit Daddy at work. I emailed Fairly Odd Father (a primary mode of communication), and we agreed that we'd take the train into Boston's South Station on Friday and all have lunch together.

We were late getting out of the house (of course), but managed to get onto the train without incident. The conductor hammed it up with the girls like a pro, telling them they had to "smile" to pay their fare. He then tried to make small talk with D who clammed up and refused to show any facial expression whatsoever.

Our meet-up with FOF and lunch went off without a hitch. We had some time to kill before our return train, so we wandered around the station. At one point, D saw a pigeon walking on the floor of the station. This blew his little mind.

A pigeon. Inside. A pigeon inside. Apigeoninside. Apigeoninside!!!!!!

He immediately set out to "catch" (his word) the pigeon which was comical. He had a sense of purpose: this pigeon must go back outside! Whenever he got close, the pigeon did a few lazy flaps of his wings and sailed 10 feet away. This made D scream in laughter. I swear, he'd still be there, walking after this pigeon, if we hadn't pulled him away to get onto our return train.

Once I had the kids back home, the girls collected every spare shoe box and made their own train. Here is the train, about one-quarter of it completed. It now runs the length of my dining room. Their finished train had a hospital and a swimming pool.


Not a bad way to spend a freezing, sleeting Friday.