Here are some photos from our trip to Chinatown yesterday (click on the image below, or click here).

I wrote about our recent trip to the Museum of Science earlier, but here are a few photos to peruse (click on the image below, or click here):

…we found ourselves waiting for the subway. We ended up there because Caleb wanted to ride the Orange Line as part of our adventure (it was Daddy Day), so we decided to take a trip to Chinatown which is just a few subway stops from Haymarket, the nearest Orange Line station to our house. It had been some time since we took the Orange Line anywhere, so I think Caleb was a bit excited.

Sorry if I spelled her name wrong, Steve, but Caleb simply wanted to get his hello “letter” to her before she took a full page ad out in the Wall Street Journal to publish her own.

The video below is from a fairly recent Daddy Day outing to the Boston Museum of Science. We were only there for a few hours but probably could have stayed much longer if our trip didn’t run into Caleb’s afternoon nap time. He had a great time, and I am quite impressed with the museum, and will likely be back with a membership in hand.

If you didn’t know this about Caleb, he is pretty infatuated with cars, race cars in particular. We were on an upper level when he caught a glimpse of this thing and insisted that we go down a few floors and check it out. Little did I know that he was trying to negotiate a bit of playtime behind the wheel… To complicate matters, I think at the end of the video, I kind of made a promise to him. Hmmm… I wonder what the age restrictions are at Skip Barber (yes, I am kidding… kind of… maybe a father/son class?… when he turns 3?… maybe…).

Okay, so this video is a bit dark, somewhat outdated (it was shot during the playoffs a few months ago), and you can see Caleb’s discarded and crumpled napkin on the floor in the background… Oh, who cares?!? I think it is pretty cute!

Caleb made the Red Sox flag at his day care and was really excited about watching a game later that evening (I think he made it through an inning or two before we had to get him to bed for our own sanity (seems he was over tired and very excited…). Nadine, ever the sweetheart, served as the perfect pivot point for Caleb’s song and dance.

Caleb, Megan, Nadine and I had nice and relaxing Christmas and New Years’ holidays. Some of our time was spent in Connecticut with my family, but for the remainder of the holidays, we enjoyed hanging out in Boston.

Aside from the usual holiday hubbub, the most important event of note is that we transitioned Caleb from diapers to underwear! We chose a weekend, went to the store, picked out some cool undies with him (he chose a Cars pack and a Superman pack) and then simply had him wear them around the house. We had tried other methods off and on over the previous weeks so he was aware of the concept of “no diaper” but had yet to really experience the reality of lighter undergarments. If you have any doubts about the cold turkey method, it worked like a charm! He was a bit put off the first few times (okay, uncomfortable, mad and sad that he wet his new undies, to be fair) but he started using the toilet more (we lavished him with praise every time) and now even uses the toilet at daycare. Yay! No more diapers!

Sweet! Enter the, “Whoops! We should have stopped the car sooner!” moments…

Enough of that — below are a few photos from the past few weeks.

Nadine hanging out in the Prado during our first real snowfall of the winter. You can’t see it in the photo but she had clumps of snow forming on her whiskers. It was quite cute.

Caleb was not feeling great that afternoon and was somewhat grumpy. That’s okay. I was grumpy too. (Well, I wasn’t, but if it makes him feel better that I was, so be it.)

A shot of the Prado and the Financial District taken from our roof deck that night.

Caleb and I had an awesome lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Central Square. We were running around the city looking for a jewelery store to get Megan a Christmas present (we finally found a perfect one in Harvard Square) and stopped here to get some grub. We barely cracked the door to go inside when Caleb announced that he wanted a quesadilla. I was somewhat taken aback since I hadn’t said anything about what kind of a restaurant it was so either he wanted one as a coincidence, or he recognized the smell of awesome Mexican food when we walked in and connected it with his favorite cheese-laden food (I’m convinced it was the latter).

The Red Line pulling into Central Square.

Caleb on my lap while we rode the Red Line back to Boston.

Nadine and her boyfriend (says she) Clyde. Whenever we visit my parents, she follows him around and tries to give him kisses (or puffs her chest out and tries to act cool). They are very cute together when they aren’t trying to show who has more feist than the other.

Nadine in the snow at my parent’s house. Check out how far apart her toes are — it’s hilarious when she does that (usually when she is getting wild and running around in circles with her ears back… or trying to maintain grip on ice…).

Caleb claiming his horde of cars and trucks on Christmas Day.

Caleb driving his girlfriend (Lydia) around our second bedroom…in a sugar snap peas box…

When you have a moment, check out our friend Lisa’s blog Finding Kajal. Lisa lives across the street from us (indeed, our apartments are so close, we could use a soup-can phone to chat) and was one of the first people to welcome us to the neighborhood. She has been a big part of Caleb’s life since we moved to the North End, and has also been just as big a part of my, Megan’s and certainly Nadine’s lives as well.

Rather than preface what her blog is about, I’ll simply encourage you (emphatically) to check it out for yourself. With that, I leave you with a snippet from her first post to gnaw on:

“A favorite classic author of mine (whose name escapes me which shows how scary jetlag can be) wrote that family is not always those whose blood we share but those for whom we would shed blood. Some of us are lucky to have both… great family we were born with… and those friends in life we come across or children we come to call our own. In my case, I am definitely one of the lucky ones.”

There is nothing like Halloween in the North End…so I discovered. I came home a bit early from work on the 31st and bumped into Megan and Caleb (she beat me to the pickup) and a bunch of his friends having a snack at a local sandwich shop. They were having a blast drinking from juice boxes and having grilled cheese sandwiches. From there, we tooled around Hanover Street (the primary shopping/eating/strolling street in our neighborhood — the “downtown,” if you will) and trick-or-treated from a ton of local businesses. I was very impressed with the number of businesses that were actively participating.

A few days earlier, there was a neighborhood party for babies and toddlers held at a local rec center. It was somewhat chaotic, but probably only for some of the parents (I’d put myself in that group). Caleb had a blast — click here or on the image above to see more!