Dec. 23: New York Aquarium

We made the trek to Coney Island to go to the NY Aquarium. Coney Island is a creepy ghost town on December 23rd. All the shops have the gates down, the wind howls through the cyclone, and the streets are empty.

Like at the zoo, Reuben is more interested in the interactive things than the actual living things. He wants to spend 5 minutes turning a nob to make a fish tail move not look at live fish tails moving. But he was pretty impressed when the sea lion stuck his tongue out at him. And he loved the sea horses.

The main reason we went was for the 13 minute "4-D experience" of the Polar Express. The movie was in 3-D, and there was mist that misted us, bubbles that blew at us, a whip underneath our chair that whipped our calves, strobe lights, rumbling floor, and a thing that punched your back.

Simeon slept in the stroller for most of the day. Reuben was wonderful until we went up to the board walk and Reuben slipped on the packed-snow-turned-into-ice. Justin thought it was so funny that there was snow at the beach, which I think he knows is ridiculous to find funny, but he still did.

On the way home I was reminded why I dislike the trains so much. First some really loud teenage boys got on and were talking about horrible things and using horrible language. When we got to Times Square the 123 platform was FULL. Something had happened and the 1 train was not running earlier. We let three express trains pass, and 4 local trains pass before we finally pushed on to the train. I could feel Justin holding Reuben on my left side, and someone's bag pressed against my back. The train started moving, and then it happened, I was inducted into the club of New Yorkers who have been inappropriately touched on crowded trains. At first I thought it was the person behind me trying to get something out of their bag, but it was too persistent and the fingers felt like they were facing me, not the bag. I jerked and turned away from hand so it could only get my hip. The train usually empties out as you get farther north, but at 96th it filled completely full again. We had moved into the center of the car (with the stroller) and our stop came. And then my faith that good people still exist in the city was restored when they let me off. People lifted the front of my stroller to help get it over bags and feet and polls. We managed to get off amid "Sorry"'s and "Merry Christsmas"'s.

I didn't get an elevator for Chirstmas. Those stairs after a long day on your feet are pretty intimidating, but we all made it up... again. One of these days I'm just going to stop going down them.