Rainy Day Weekend

While Saturday's weather was gleefully sunny, Sunday was a turnaround. Rain and wind sang my family and me to sleep and we woke to clouds and horizontal rain pecking at our windows. My 8-month-old daughter didn't seem fazed. Waking at her usual time of 6AM, weekend or not, she talked loudly and pleasantly to herself, pushing her pacifiers through her crib bars onto the hardwood floor, waking my husband and me. We call her Lil Poco because she is small for her age, but lately, she's been catching up.

We were planning to take Poco to the Esplanade, but the weather was crappy. There were definitely household items we "needed" from the local IKEA, but planning a trip to IKEA always accompanies in me a sense of shame, excess, and consumerist waste, so I saved that for the next day, which I happened to have off. Instead, we visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It was our daughter's first visit to a museum of any kind.

You may be thinking, What is she doing bringing baby to a museum? That's what I thought, when I was young and childless and encountered screaming children with their tired parents in otherwise tranquil art museums and galleries. I took a chance. Fortunately, we brought a reverent version of Poco who seemed fascinated by color and lights and people. This isn't how she is every day, but at the MFA, she was relatively peaceful. She didn't throw up on anything that I was aware of. I don't know if she liked the art, but my husband and I did.

We headed straight for the new wing which presented mostly American art in a stunningly beautiful way. I loved showing my daughter portraits of Paul Revere and George Washington. There were a lot of works by John Singleton Copley. Then we walked over to the Contemporary Art section. I especially liked explaining to Poco the story of Lilith as we showed her a sculpture depicting Adam's first wife. She did not seem to feel one way or another about Lilith, but she liked touching a long glittery curtain of gold beads that may or may not have been an exhibit unto itself. I love watching her face as she ponders a thing completely new to her. Watching her watching something else transforms me.

I expected the MFA to be crowded due to the rain, but it wasn't. It may have been a combination of the high price of admission and the fact that it was Sunday, it was raining, and most people would stay in. I know I would, but I guess I've changed.