You never know how a toddler will react to having a new sibling. It can’t be easy going from 100% of our attention to something much lower than that. But Daniel has been as great a big brother as we could have hoped for since Matthew’s birth. So Tary and I took a day off from work last month (June 8th) and took him out for a special “Fun Day”.

We started by dropping Matthew off with my mom. We then headed to the Stone Zoo in Stoneham, MA. We got there at around 10:30 AM hoping to avoid the crowds but were surprised to find several buses unloading kids for a field trip.

It only took us an hour to walk the grounds and visit nearly every exhibit. Half of that time was navigating through various groups of people. The pathways were mostly stroller-friendly but some spots were still too bumpy. We saw a few birds, monkeys, reindeer, and bears. It was a little disappointing that there weren’t more animals.

The Stone Zoo was a little pricey for just an “average” experience. The zoo was on the small size but that makes it manageable for young kids. However the lack of animal exhibits combined with the crowdedness makes this a once-in-a-long-while destination.

We then went to the Rainforest Cafe in the Burlington Mall for lunch. The dining area was mostly vacant so we asked to be seated by one of the aquariums. We ordered a cheese pizza for Daniel. After we were done eating, we asked the waitress to box Daniel’s remaining pizza. As she started to walk away with his food, he thought she was tossing it away so he yelled out, “Hey!”

It was really nice spending extra quality time with Daniel. He is an amazing child. I hope when he is older, we can look back at pictures from this day and think fondly of our time together.