The weather in Boston was rainy during our last two days there, so we decided to stay inside museums. First, John drove us to the MIT museum in Cambridge. Here are a couple pictures of Dash on the ride to the museum. He is sitting in the forward-facing car seat that John borrowed from a coworker. This was his first time (and so far, his only time) riding in a car facing forward.

Many of the exhibits were interactive, and the first one we encountered allowed us to play Tetris on a model of a building. Totally cool, and we knew right away that this was our kind of museum.

My favorite exhibits were Robots and Beyond (a history of robots and artificial intelligence) and Arthur Ganson’s mechanical sculptures. The coolest sculpture was Margot’s Cat (pictured on the right). A doll house chair passively bounces over a cat figurine that is sliding left and right and you never know which way the chair might spin. It was totally unpredictable and surprising.

After buying some souvenirs in the gift shop, we drove back to Jamaica Plain in the rain. On the way, we stopped at a comic book and game store to buy more Magic cards. This might have been Dash’s first time in a comic book store. In fact, Eric and I kept noting that this trip to Boston held many “firsts” for Dash – his first time flying on an airplane, his first time out of Virginia, his first time to a convention, etc.

Next, we met Cat and Justin for hot tea at Ula Cafe, which is next to the Samuel Adams Brewery. We played rummy while we dried off and warmed up from the cold and the rain. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to tour the brewery, even though it was on our itinerary.

For dinner, John cooked stir fry and edamame for us. It was great to have a home-cooked meal after eating out almost all weekend.

We drank white wine and ate dinner by candle light.

Eric, Cat, John, and I played Magic on the floor after dinner.

Just like old times, when they all lived in Richmond. It doesn’t get better than this.

The next morning, we went to Cat’s and Justin’s apartment for breakfast. Justin is a vegan and Eric is a vegetarian, so Cat cooked vegan chocolate chip pancakes and fake breakfast sausage. We also had coffee and orange juice.

Cat’s apartment is so very Cat & Justin. If you didn’t know them, you could learn a lot about them from studying the little vignettes all over their apartment.

Just by the way that they decorate their place, you could tell that they are sentimental about Richmond and that they are very much in love.

Almost all of their art is hand made.

And there are bikes and books everywhere.

After eating a hot breakfast at Cat’s cozy apartment, we ventured back into the rain and went to the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard. Photography wasn’t allowed, so I didn’t get any pictures… but the place was full of morbid medical oddities and historical surgical tools.

For lunch, we ate at a cheap Chinese restaurant near Emerson College, where Cat goes to graduate school.

Then, Cat showed us her office at Emerson College (she’s a teacher, too!) and the amazing view of the Boston Common from the same building.

Soon, it was time for John to take us to the airport. He dropped us off at Logan International and we said goodbye. But when we tried to check-in and print our tickets, we discovered that our flight had been canceled! It was canceled due to flooding caused by all the rain that had fallen during the previous two days. We immediately called John to ask him to pick us up, and we rescheduled our flight for the next morning while we waited for him to return.

It ended up being fortuitous that we got to stay another night because we got to accompany John to music night! Every Tuesday night, he meets with a group of guys to play music. John plays mandolin and sings, and I happened to record a few videos. I caught the end of Shady Grove, and most of Paradise by John Prine.

I got the chills because this is what my family used to do when I was growing up, but it’s been years since we’ve played together. It was nostalgic to see and hear John and his group play music like this, and to be able to share the moment with Eric and Dash.

Our flight home the next morning was uneventful, and Dash was easy to travel with. Traveling with a baby, especially one as young as Dash was when we went to Boston, really wasn’t any harder than traveling alone. Just pack a few extra clothes and diapers, and you’re set. He didn’t require extra food because I was still nursing him, and he didn’t need a lot of toys because he could be entertained with our keys or cell phones. Our friends were accommodating and doting, and we didn’t even have to sacrifice anything on our itinerary because of our baby.

We thought we had it easy. Experienced parents used to tell us to savor these early months because it would only get harder, but we didn’t know what they were talking about. Once he starts crawling, they said, it would be all over.

As I write this, Dash is almost eight months old. That’s twice as old as he was when we went to Boston. He is now crawling, standing, and getting into everything. He eats solid food at least twice a day. He has become clingy and demanding. He remains a Good Baby, but he requires more and more attention every day. It makes me wonder how different this trip to Boston would have been with a baby that did more than just eat and sleep.

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