Sly Spoon

I have been living on the MIT campus for the last 5 years while my husband is working on his PhD. While here we have had two children (both born at Mount Auburn Hospital, and both were great experiences – if you have questions about medical care feel free to email me and I’ll do my best to answer them)

We also lived in Eastgate for two year and Westgate for two years and I have a pretty good feel for both communities. I’ve heard a lot of chatter lately about people moving here and not knowing which place to choose and then regretting their choice once they’ve seen what both communities have to offer so I thought I’d do my best to layout the pros and cons of each in hopes that you can make a more informed decision when your time comes.

If you have questions, feel free to reach out to me, I’ll do my best to answer them.
Email for Brittney
novelpairing <at> gmail <dot> com

EASTGATE

We started out at Eastgate in a one bedroom center apartment (the smallest they have to offer).

Pro:

Close to campus (My husband who works in the Biology Department would regularly come home for lunch) Super close to the chemistry building, SLOAN, and the List Media Center.
Close to Transportation – Literally a two minute walk to the Red Line T-Station (Boston Subway)
15 minute walk to the mall, and many restaurants close by
15 minute walk to the grocery store/Mini Mall (Star Market on Mcgrath Highway) There are also some clothing shops, and a Marshall’s which has some home wares in it.
View of the Charles river (some apartment’s views are absolutely breathtaking)
Great Natural Light
Awesome Indoor Kid Playroom, Super organized, super well lit, and they clean it from top to bottom, sanitizing every lego, once a month.
Amazing Penthouse, open to everyone. Community events are often held there and you are welcome to use it yourself.

Cons:

Bathroom is through the bedroom (at least in the center apartments)
Kitchen is very small and the oven seems dwarf size (we had to get smaller baking sheets for it)
No Air Conditioners, and in the summer you need one! (There are places to add one of your own purchasing)
Elevator Congestions (There are three elevators for the 28 floor building, at certain times of day they get very congested and you’ll have to wait) … Often an elevator will also be out of commission for a few hours of the day for garbage and/or repairs.
Elevators Breaking – They have had a ton of repairs for these elevators and still they seem to have to take one down often for more repairs which can really slow down your mobility, especially if you are on an upper floor.
Outside Playground is hard to use – it’s shared with a daycare and I found it a bit stressful to try to play with my children on it during day care hours as it’s flooded with other/older kids. There is another grill area that is less congested, but still not ideal
Constructions – They are doing tons of renovations around the area so construction setbacks are frequent
Pre-Mounted furniture in the bedrooms (this could really be a pro or con, nice to have dresser space already there and ready for you, but I felt like it took up a lot of room)

My Over All Thoughts

Eastgate was an amazing place to live before we had children. It was close to the city, close to campus, close to the “T” station, and the spacing was not bad for two people.

After our son was born the spacing was too tight, and even though I attended all of the community events I felt like I had a harder time meeting people and making “mom” friends.

MY MIT EASTGATE CENTER APARTMENT UNFURNISHED

MY MIT EASTGATE CENTER APARTMENT FURNISHED

(King Sized Bed)

WESTGATE

We moved to Westgate when my elder son was a year and half. We moved into the low rise (Two Bedroom – the biggest they have to offer, though our rent barley increased)

Pros:

More Space
An amazing community of supportive people
A giant playground right in the middle of everything, in the evenings everyone lives on the playground, lots of friends for your kids, lots of moms from every corner of the world to talk to, and everyone with the feeling of we’re all working together to survive grad school (If you have children please please please move to Westgate! I could not believe the difference it made to me, how much happier and more well connected I felt, I did baby sitting swaps with other moms, outtings with other moms, preschool co-ops with other moms, we lived on the playground during the summer and my mental health was so much better in this super kid friendly community. … Even if you now have to trek across campus (there is actually a shuttle that comes frequently) please consider Westgate for your own mental health.
Great natural light in all the rooms
No pre-mounted furniture
15 Minute walk to grocery store – Star Market (city center store, it’s expensive and not great quality food), or Trader Joes
Each apartment comes with a storage unit
Community Toys for kids (bicycles, balls, etc)
Indoor playroom – Less awesome than Eastgate, but still nice for the winter
Balcony (only for the lowrise)

Cons:

Further from Campus
Further from Mass Transportation
Community space is in the basement, so its dark and less awesome
Laundry – It’s the basement of the highrise, so if you live in the low rise you have to drag your laundry through the playground (huge distractions when you have kids) and get it into the building to do it
View – Playground
No Air Conditioners/ Automatic heating in the winter (read that as way too hot… it will be a blizzard outside and you will have your balcony door open)

My Over All Thoughts

We have loved Westgate, even with its flaws. If you have kids of any age please try to come here, the community is super supportive and the playground is a magical place to meet people and play. Even thought it’s further from campus and more of a hassle to get around I have made some of my deepest friendships here and I’m pretty sure the support from these ladies saved me from going completely insane while having kids during grad school.

MY MIT WESTGATE 2 BEDROOM APARTMENT UNFURNISHED

MY MIT WESTGATE 2 BEDROOM APARTMENT FURNISHED

King Sized Bed, In the smaller of the two rooms, there isn’t room for anything but the bed and it’s tight but it works

Toddler Letters – “Z” is for “Zebra”

December 26, 2016August 23, 2023 Brittney

Supplies Needed:

Toddler/Preshooler letter of the week craft Z is for Zebra with related craft, tracing sheets and fruits/vegetables.

Colored Craft Paper
Letter “Z” Cutout
Glue
Black Paint (We used finger paint)
Googly Eyes
Black Craft Paper
Scissors
Paint Brush (If you want it, we attempted to use a Q-tip, but decided that our fingers were more fun)

Set Up:

We started by dipping our fingers into the finger paint and making stripes (or in my son’s case spots) of black across our “Z” to form the stripes of our zebra. We let our “Z” dry. Once it was dry I cut out some ear shapes from our black craft paper and we glued those to the top of our Z and added some googly eyes before gluing the whole thing to our craft paper.

We finished by talking about different kinds of animals and some of the interesting things different animals can do. Elephants have long noses and can use them to grab things, giraffes have long neck and can reach leaves high up in the trees, monkeys can use their hands to climb trees etc.

Toddler/Preshooler letter of the week craft Z is for Zebra with related craft, tracing sheets and fruits/vegetables.

Toddler Letters – “Y” is for “Yarn”

December 12, 2016August 23, 2023 Brittney

Supplies Needed:

Toddler/Preshooler letter of the week craft Y is for Yarn with related craft, tracing sheets and fruits/vegetables.

Colored Craft Paper
Letter “Y” Cutout
Elmer’s Glue
Scissors
Yarn
Marker

Set Up:

We started by cutting long strips of yarn. I oped to do a thin line of glue and wrap my yarn around my letter “Y”, my son had more fun covering his “Y” in glue and glueing down long and short strips of yarn to his letter… mostly I think he liked being able to play with scissors and cut the yarn. Both ways worked out great.

We finished by talking about strings and how they can be used to make things like fabric, carpet, and rope. I had him look at his shirt and find the hem so he could see the thin string used to hold his shirt together, then we looked at our shag rug to see how the lots of little stings formed the soft carpeting and we finished by looking at a rope and seeing how all the stings wound together made for a really strong rope.

Toddler/Preshooler letter of the week craft Y is for Yarn with related craft, tracing sheets and fruits/vegetables.

Toddler Letters – “X” is for “X-Ray”

November 28, 2016August 23, 2023 Brittney

Toddler/Preshooler letter of the week craft X is for X-Ray with related craft, tracing sheets and fruits/vegetables.

Supplies Needed:

Colored Craft Paper
Letter “X” Cutout
Elmer’s Glue
Scissors
Q-tips
Markers

Set Up:

We stared by gluing down our black letter “X” to our white paper. Then we cut up our Q-tips so that we could use the ends to form more bone like structures. Once we had the Q-tips we wanted we did a line across our letter “X” with our glue and glued down our Q-tips in the pattern we wanted… my son’s X-ray ended up looking like someone with some seriously broken bones 🙂

We finished by talking about what bones were, I showed him some pictures of X-Rays and we talked about how our bones help support us.

Toddler/Preshooler letter of the week craft X is for X-Ray with related craft, tracing sheets and fruits/vegetables.

Tracing Letters:

*Courtesy of http://bogglesworldesl.com/

Have you made this craft? What was your experience like and do you have an suggestions to make it better? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section below.