Merriment on the Merry-go-Round

On Saturday, we spent the day in Boston and happened upon the grand opening of the Greenway Carousel.  The carousel is located on The Rose Kennedy Greenway between Fanueil Hall Marketplace and Christopher Columbus Park at The Tiffany & Co. Foundation Grove.

This puts it directly in the path of all the kiddos visiting the aquarium, touring Quincy Market, or running through the grass on the Greenway.  And if those children are anything like our Maddie Bear, they won't be able to resist the lure of a good merry-go-round.  In fact, we rode it twice.  

The coolest thing about the Greenway Carousel are the whimsical characters the children get to ride on.  Instead of traditional horses, this carousel uses species native to Massachusetts such as a whale, sea turtles, a fox, a skunk, and of course....lobsters.  According to the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway website, the animals were inspired by the drawings of Boston school children and sculpted by local artist Jeff Brigs.

While I waited in line with Madeline, we talked about which animal she wanted to ride on.  At first she wanted the sea turtle, then the bunny, then the butterfly, and, oh, the pirate ship!  I could hear the other kids around us plotting over which animal they were hoping to get, and I worried briefly that there might be a kid-on-kid scuffle over the whale.

Luckily, Madeline was perfectly happy riding almost any of the animals as long as it wasn't a lobster.  Girl has a deathly fear of lobsters.  So, we found a bunny and climbed aboard.

Big Belly Alert...And There's Still Four Months to Go!

When the carousel began to move, and Madeline's bunny started climbing up into the sky, she giggled nervously a little.  "Look, Madeline!  Your bunny is hopping!" I told her.

"Yeah.  That's so silly," she replied and held on a little more tightly.

When we were finished, she ran to Eric who had been watching and snapping photos from the sidelines.  "Was that so fun?" he asked her.

"Yeah, but I wanted to ride the butterfly..." she pouted.  Kids.  They're never satisfied with the first bunny they ride.

We told her that maybe we'd let her ride again on our way back if she was a good girl for the rest of the day.  Then we headed toward Christopher Columbus Park to view the art festival being held, walked along the water for a bit, then found some pizza in the North End.

Madeline kept her end of the deal by being a good sport while we dragged her through craft booths and over cobblestone streets, so we looped back toward the carousel before catching the train home.

There's a lobster lurking nearby...

And this time, she got to ride a butterfly with Dada.  They did have to switch seats a few times though because there were too many lobsters nearby.  It's a good thing there were so many butterflies to choose from.  If she had wanted the whale, we would have been in trouble.

That's better.