June 2006

Fellow rookie mom Becky describes some of Boston’s best bets for babies especially for the Spring and Summer:

Monday — Play it Local
We live near Cleveland Circle in Brighton, Massachusetts, close to Boston College, sandwiched between the towns of Newton and Brookline. One of the delights of living in Boston is that it is so easy to walk to places of interest . We have a number of favorite neighborhood activities: playing at the Waldstein Playground, walking around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and visiting the Brookline Public and Newton Free Libraries. While, for the adults, these may not compete in interest value with the Art Museum or the Aquarium, they are free and when you’re a new little guy or gal, probably just as stimulating.

The Waldstein Playground is between Dean Road and Clinton Path, behind the buildings on the south side of Beacon Street. It has baby and kid swings, a sandbox, a spray fountain for playing in, and other climbing equipment. My son’s favorite feature is that from the park you can see the “T” trains going by. The Chestnut Hill Reservoir, adjacent to Cleveland Circle, is about two miles around, and affords views across the water, and of the local wildlife: swans, turtles and ducks.

Both the Brookline and Newton Libraries have large children’s rooms, and each has a nice selection of board books arranged so that babies can pull out any they find interesting.

Tuesday — Make Way for Ducklings
One of America’s classic children’s stories, Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings is set in Boston. If you have read this story to your child, you must make a trip to the Public Garden (located in central Boston, at Arlington Street, between Beacon and Boylston streets).

In the spring and summer the Public Garden is alive with trees and flowers. When we visited last, much of the grass was roped off to allow for new growth, but we did find a section of grass near the duckling statues (memorializing Make Way) where Nick could crawl around. The bronze statues of mama duck and ducklings make a wonderful photo opportunity.

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Posting and sharing videos, especially baby videos, has really blossomed lately. Sites like YouTube and VideoEgg make it easy to document baby’s life in real time. This post is a plug for our friend Olivia’s website, Jalapenyo, and the concept of “I made this video message especially for you” that is getting lost in the public blog-o-flickr-sphere shuffle.

For Father’s Day, I made a hella cute video e-card of Holden saying “Happy Father’s Day” and I sent it to my step-dad, father-in-law, and brother-in-law (so much for that individual thing I was talking about). This is a great idea for all special occasions and last minute “oh crap! We forgot to get something in the mail in time” kind of occasions.

Jalapenyo.com allows parents to upload a mini home video into a customizable e-card and share it with up to 10 other family members and friends. Special offer announcement: The service is free through August 1st, so if you got a new video camera for Christmas (like Whitney did), get on it.

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For those of us who want to be surprised in the delivery room — and believe me, we all are one way or another — we still have fun guessing whether it is a he or she.

PregnancyWeekly.com gives a super fun list of 38 ways to “tell” if it is a boy or a girl. Try ‘em out.

Some list highlights. Can you guess which is which?

• Is Dad-to-be is gaining weight, right along with you?
• Does pregnancy have you looking better than ever?
• Is your urine is bright yellow in color?
• Is your nose is spreading?
• If you hang your wedding ring over your belly, does it moves in circle?

If you answered yes to all of those… you’re having a boy! If you answered yes and no, then you still can’t be sure. Supposedly. Read all the ways to guess your baby’s gender >