Not having been back east in almost a year, we decided to take Tessie to visit her American grandparents at Thanksgiving.
We had a very pleasant visit, but before long we had eaten all the turkey we could handle,
had solved the world's problems in conversation with Aunt Leslie,
and even invented new rules for dominoes. 
What else could we do? Well, Boston is one of the world's great cities and has several outstanding museums, so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and see two of them. Our first visit would be to the Boston Children's Museum. Bostonians of my vintage may recall this museum's predecessor, which was located in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood. This newer incarnation of the Children's Museum, I was surprised to learn, has been in its current location since 1979. As happy as I would have been to revisit the old museum, this new one would exceed my expectations by far.
But first we had to get there. Somewhat surprisingly for a southern California native, Tessie loves trains. With both parents and Aunt Leslie in tow, she boarded the MBTA's Green Line for a brisk ride into downtown Boston,
where we changed trains at the Park Street station. Tessie's favorite letter is - no surprise - 'T,' so she was thrilled to see it emblazoned on the sides of all the train cars. (The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority rail system is known simply as "The 'T.'") Two stops later, we arrived at South Station and made the short walk across the Fort Point Channel to the museum. 
After a quicker-than-expected lunch at the nearby Barking Crab restaurant, we entered the museum. One of the very first things visitors see upon entry is a three story climbing tower made of carpeted plywood and enclosed in cable mesh. Sized and spaced for smaller bodies, the tower compels kids to slide, twist and shimmy their way from level to level to reach the top. Tessie took to it immediately, and while she did not summit in her first attempt, she would before the day ended.
From there it was off to the "Boats Afloat" area on the second floor. Aprons are thoughtfully provided, but only in child sizes, so adults must be on guard against splashing kids who gleefully use the room's assortment of buckets, tubes and other playthings to send water in all directions. 
Other hands-on activities at the museum include all of the devices in the "Raceways" room, where kids (and o.k., I admit it: me, too) can drop golf balls in a wide variety of machines. There are simple ski jump-type ramps, a sine wave ramp, pachinko machines, a gravity well, and even a design-your-own wall of magnetized tubes.
There's so much more to do at the museum that we had hard time keeping up with Tessie. She got to suit up as a worker on Boston's (in)famous Big Dig:
She got to "drive" an excavator: 
and dress up as a squirrel:
Tessie even got to visit an authentic Japanese house from Boston's sister city, Kyoto. (It was a swap: Boston got a whole house; Kyoto got a street lamp. That's the last time the trade imbalance with Japan was in our favor.) Here she is in the kitchen:
and here in the bedroom:
(No, she's not sleeping. She's play-sleeping. We were already wiped out by this time, but Tessie was still going strong!)
She sat on some eggs in a nest:
and predicted her own future: 
Eventually it became time to leave, so back to the 'T' we went. Tessie finally showed some signs of tiredness, then fell asleep on my lap for the train ride home.
Which only meant she got her second wind that night, and stayed up until midnight after wearing us out all day! We had a very pleasant visit, but before long we had eaten all the turkey we could handle,
had solved the world's problems in conversation with Aunt Leslie,
and even invented new rules for dominoes. But first we had to get there. Somewhat surprisingly for a southern California native, Tessie loves trains. With both parents and Aunt Leslie in tow, she boarded the MBTA's Green Line for a brisk ride into downtown Boston,
where we changed trains at the Park Street station. Tessie's favorite letter is - no surprise - 'T,' so she was thrilled to see it emblazoned on the sides of all the train cars. (The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority rail system is known simply as "The 'T.'") Two stops later, we arrived at South Station and made the short walk across the Fort Point Channel to the museum. After a quicker-than-expected lunch at the nearby Barking Crab restaurant, we entered the museum. One of the very first things visitors see upon entry is a three story climbing tower made of carpeted plywood and enclosed in cable mesh. Sized and spaced for smaller bodies, the tower compels kids to slide, twist and shimmy their way from level to level to reach the top. Tessie took to it immediately, and while she did not summit in her first attempt, she would before the day ended.
Other hands-on activities at the museum include all of the devices in the "Raceways" room, where kids (and o.k., I admit it: me, too) can drop golf balls in a wide variety of machines. There are simple ski jump-type ramps, a sine wave ramp, pachinko machines, a gravity well, and even a design-your-own wall of magnetized tubes.
There's so much more to do at the museum that we had hard time keeping up with Tessie. She got to suit up as a worker on Boston's (in)famous Big Dig:
She got to "drive" an excavator: and dress up as a squirrel:Tessie even got to visit an authentic Japanese house from Boston's sister city, Kyoto. (It was a swap: Boston got a whole house; Kyoto got a street lamp. That's the last time the trade imbalance with Japan was in our favor.) Here she is in the kitchen:and here in the bedroom:(No, she's not sleeping. She's play-sleeping. We were already wiped out by this time, but Tessie was still going strong!)
She sat on some eggs in a nest:and predicted her own future: Eventually it became time to leave, so back to the 'T' we went. Tessie finally showed some signs of tiredness, then fell asleep on my lap for the train ride home.
(Being slow learners, we repeated the whole experience with a trip to Boston's Museum of Science a few days later. That'll be my next post.)
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