Nervous Nelly

Who needs to make new friends in New York when it seems like every week one friend or another is here from California?  This week it was my dear friend of 30+ years, Jean.  He is here on business for the weekend and so we got a babysitter and Kevin and I took him out for dinner and drinks and got to catch up on family and life.  So great to see him and have a taste of home.

We started Saturday off at the hair salon.

It turns out Ella got an "interim" haircut.  I let her do the talking.  She told the hairdresser that she wanted a bob, above the shoulder.  Apparently the hairdresser was too scared to cut so much off of her hair all at once because although she took several inches off, it was still well past her shoulders.  Ella didn't seem to mind and it was obvious the hairdresser needed to get back to another client who was having her hair colored, so she said if Ella wants more off we could return on Wednesday when she's here next.  Of course as soon as we got home Ella said she wants more off.  Then this morning she decided she liked it as is.  We'll see if it stays.

From there we headed out to discover Brooklyn.  At least one neighborhood: Williamsburg.  It's a very cool little neighborhood - hipster central.  Lots of stores that sell ironic t-shirts, oversized plastic sunglasses, and of course the ubiquitous fedora hats.  We had a nice day although I just about had a nervous breakdown. 

We let the kids take their scooters with them.  The sidewalks were very crowded (not evidenced in the above photo).  The kids would get way up ahead of us and I was a nervous wreck.  They would always stop at the corner and wait for us to cross the street but always a little too close to the edge, for my comfort.  Drivers here are crazy and there's no observation of silly things like stop signs or red lights.  Holden crashed into the back of at least one woman that I saw (and heard evidence of a second).

I thought these were going to be such a great idea because the kids wouldn't complain about all the walking.  But I didn't realize the trade-off.  They had a fabulous time though, zipping down the blocks, weaving between pedestrians.  And we had a nice lunch on a rooftop terrace (rooftop bars and restaurants is going to be our theme for the summer, I've decided).

 And saw some fun art.

By the time we got home I was so stressed out that I had to take a long hot bath to relax my nerves.

We did make one pit-stop on the way home to pick up a chess board.  Both kids are now getting chess lessons once a week in their classrooms and love it.  Friday night was chess night at school and since we were out with Jean, our babysitter took them over and they had a great time playing chess.  Who knew?

Sunday I had grand plans to get us back over to Brooklyn to the Brooklyn Museum to see an exhibit that Kevin and I have been wanting to see since we got here.  We made it all the way to the subway (with the scooters) before I realized how much stress these damn scooters were causing me.  I'm already a nervous Nelly on the subway with the kids.  Those trains FLY by and there is very little distance between you and the speeding train.  An average of one person EVERY WEEK is killed by a NYC subway train.  I grip the kids' hands so tight they complain whenever we're on the platform.  And to do it with a scooter in tow...too much.  I know I'll get used to it but on Sunday I decided that instead we should just take it easy, play in Central Park (with the scooters) and hang close to home.  We did and ended up having a really nice, relaxing day.

We used all of the amenities in our building - the kids went swimming in the pool, they played in the playroom while Kevin and I read in the lounge.  We all even hung out on our roof deck - the kids playing tag while the grown-ups read and soaked in the sun. 

Just what I needed.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Ugh.  Our housing bubble has burst.  When I found this apartment online from San Mateo it looked fabulous but we were so nervous to sign a long term lease, sight-unseen.  No problem, the leasing agent said, just sign a six-month lease and if you like it you can renew.  Whew!  Problem solved.  What a relief.  So we did. 

And we walked into our penthouse apartment (that was stretching our budget) and fell in love.  You've seen our views.  You've heard about the swimming pool and playroom and workout room and lounge and roof deck.  It's been like living in a luxury hotel.  And don't get me started on my commute to drop off and pick up the children each day.

And then last week we got a notice to renew our lease (which isn't up until July 14th).  And BAM!  That's when the bottom fell out of our fairy tale.  They're increasing our rent by almost 20%!  Apparently they have a small print kind of way to get around the pesky "rent control" thing in the lease.  Has the market really changed that much in the 10 weeks since we signed our original lease?  I tried negotiating.  And pleading.  And begging.  They came down a fraction - 2%.  But it's still way over our budget.  They offered us an apartment 23 floors down that stares right at the building next door for $300 more than we're paying now AND a $1,000 "transfer fee"!  Wait a minute.  Aren't we saving them time and money by not having to advertize and show the other apartment?  They want to charge us to stay in the building so that they only have one apartment to find a new tenant for instead of two? 

*sigh*  We're so sad.  We love this place. 

On the other hand, who knows, maybe we'll find something even better (or at least bigger) and for less money.  We can go without the pool - there are plenty of public pools around.  And Kevin can go for a run in the morning instead of the workout room.  But we'd love to have a view.  And the light. 

Wish us luck.

And as if that weren't enough change going on around here, Ella has decided that she wants to cut all her hair off.  She wants short hair. 

What's the big deal, right?  It's only hair.  It'll grow back.  It'll be better for summer.  She never brushes her hair anyway. 

I don't know why but it makes me sad.  I love her long hair.  I've put her in a waiting period to make sure she really wants to cut it short.  I've been stalling her for about two weeks now and she hasn't let up.  She knows how long it will take to grow back if she doesn't like it and she still begs me daily to get it cut. 

So, she's got an appointment with my hairdresser at 10:30 tomorrow morning.  Stay posted for photos.

A Perfect New York Moment

One of the best parts of being a stay-at-home mom is that I get to go on every single field trip.  Especially now that we're living in New York because everything is new to me.  I get to cross off a bunch of places I already had on my Places to Take the Kids list (aka, my The Big Apple with Little People Pinterest board).  And a bonus that I didn't even think of until this week is that chaperoning a field trip means meeting other chaperones, so I've had a chance to make a few new parent-friends.

Yesterday I got to go with Holden's kindergarten class to see a puppet show of Aesop's Fables.  Coincidentally, my earliest memory of going to any kind of child-centered performance was seeing a production of Aesop's Fables at San Francisco State University.

Holden was thrilled to get to ride a school bus again and frankly, the kindergarteners were much better behaved on the bus than the second graders were on Tuesday.  The show was really great and they even taught the kids how to make their own puppets. 

On Tuesday the kids finally got their scooters that they have been begging for for weeks.  Anyone who has spent any time in New York (outside of Times Square) knows that every small child rides a scooter around the city.  There really is so much walking required of living in the city that for the parents' sake, once a child is out of a stroller it's necessary to give the kids some wheels of their own.  Plus, the scooters can easily be brought on a subway or stashed in a taxi.  Kevin and I figure they will make our lives easier on the weekends when we want to keep going and the kids start whining and complaining about all the walking.

Last night the Central Park Conservancy was having a fireworks show to celebrate the arrival of spring.  I'm realizing that in a place that has such long winters, spring arriving is a BIG deal.  There's all kinds of celebrating going on.  So even though it would mean the kids would stay up past their bedtime, the plan was to meet Kevin down at 72nd Street where the show was supposed to be.  The kids rode their brand new scooters to the subway.

As soon as we got above ground and met up with Kevin it was like a scene out of The Wizard of Oz.  Scary, dark black clouds were coming over from the Hudson River and the winds were insane.  We could barely open our eyes and Ella and I almost got taken out by a sign falling off the scaffolding above us.  It was all we could do to hang on to the scooters.  Kevin and I made a quick executive decision to forgo the fireworks (if they were even still going to happen) and duck into a restaurant.  We had to console the crying kids who were so looking forward to the fireworks show with a giant plate of chocolate empenadas covered in mountains of whipped cream and piles of powdered sugar.  We consoled ourselves with wine, naturally.  We hopped in a taxi (scooters and all) and heard the fireworks overhead.  By this time a lightening storm had also started, so there was a somewhat divine light show going on.  Kevin asked the driver if he could take Central Park West back to our apartment (not the easiest way to go but it would give us the best view of the fireworks).  He flipped an illegal u-turn and we got a full ten minutes of the fireworks show on our drive home, looking out the back window.  

A perfect New York moment.

Botanists for a Day

Hallelujah!!  The weather was glorious today and even tipped just past 80 degrees!  And what a perfect day to chaperone Ella's class field trip to the New York Botanical Gardens.  First, let me just say how impressed I am with how many field trips the kids get to take at their school.  They average 1-2 each month.  At our old school we were lucky to get one per semester. 

The Botanical Gardens are absolutely gorgeous.  They're like the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park but about four times as big.  In addition to the greenhouses they also have extensive outdoor gardens, walking paths, fountains and children's gardens.  It's an oasis in the middle of the Bronx. 

 Ella and the famous Maeve

The kids had to diagram their plants and label them.

Then they got to plant their own rainforest plant to take home.

 

Ella's on the far right.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter except with rain and lightening... I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the weather here.

Getting Our Art On

It was nice to get back to our routines and schedules this week.  The kids were both really happy to go back to school on Wednesday so I take that as a very good sign that they love their new school.  They started a new after school class on Tuesdays which is a combination art and music class that is taught in Spanish.  Originally I was just going to sign Holden up thinking that he could use an extra hour of Spanish a week, at least until he starts in the Spanish program at school in 1st grade.  Then I figured that Ella would just be hanging out with me downstairs in Starbucks while Holden was in class so I went ahead and signed her up as well.  It's in a dirty old building up on the top floor a few blocks from us.  When you climb the stairs the walls are covered with bright Mexican murals and the smell of incense is heavy.  It took me right back to the Mission district.  As we went up Ella said, "I'm starting to get freaked out."  But by the end of class she was so excited - they got to make their own guitars and Holden's new favorite song is now La Bamba.

Now that it's starting (barely) to warm up a bit I've started walking in the mornings for exercise.  After dropping off the kids at school I walk straight over to Central Park and walk around the big reservoir (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir).  It's an amazingly beautiful walking/running path. 

I can hardly believe that I get to walk around this every day.

I also did some more sewing this week.  Maeve's mom Sharon showed me her very favorite purse she's had for years and literally loved to death:

And asked if I could try to copy it.  My first draft wasn't perfect but she seemed happy with it.

The weekend was fun-filled and crammed to the gills, once again.  We've replaced our old Friday night tradition of Friday Night Happy Hour with the neighbors in San Mateo with Friday Night dinner with Maeve's family.  All nine of us packed into our tiny apartment and ordered pizzas.  On Saturday, we finally hit The New Museum which Kevin's sister had given him a membership to for his birthday back in February.  I suppose we should have done a little research on what the exhibit was before we went.  They were doing a flash back to 1993 and I guess art in 1993 was very phallic because there were penises everywhere.  There was even a TV playing an endless loop of William Kennedy Smith at his rape trial saying, "It was my penis, " over and over and over...  Honestly, I was less worried about the kids seeing penises (they were unimpressed) and more worried about what the other adults in the museum thought of my parenting skills bringing two small children to this exhibit.  The museum itself is really cool with an amazing roof deck.

Sunday almost turned into a disaster but was saved, several times over.  I had plans that we were going to go on a ranger led "Family Hike" in Inwood Park, which is at the very tip top of Manhattan, right next to the Bronx.  We waited so long for the subway to arrive (which is very unusual) that it was clear before we even boarded the train that we were going to miss the hike.  

Ella sketching in the subway.

We decided to go up anyway to check out the park.  We realized on the ride up (that should have taken 20 minutes but took an hour) that the subway was having trouble.  Finally, one stop before ours they had everyone get off and said all of the trains in both directions were not working and we should find other means of transportation.  We decided to walk the rest of the way.  Once above ground it felt like we were in a completely different city.  It was much seedier, dirty and run down.  There were young men working the street corners and boarded up shops and restaurants.  We walked quickly up towards the park and then realized that we were pretty close to the Cloisters where we had gone sledding with Maeve's family back when we first arrived.  The Cloisters Museum is in an old (simulated) Medieval castle and houses European Medieval art - paintings, sculptures, even parts of churches brought over from Europe.  It's in the middle of a park so we got a bit of our hike in after all.

I was shocked at how much the kids really liked the museum.  It was dead silent with lots of statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus and tapestries and stained glass and the kids were mesmerized.  I got several looks from older people who were clearly as impressed as I was at how interested the kids were and how well behaved they were in what would normally be a very boring museum for most kids.  Ella took a ton of photos and sketched in her notebook.  She made sure we hit every room before we left.  And then we entered a room with a famous tapestry from the 1400s of a unicorn and she went crazy.  She had seen a photo of it before and couldn't believe we were actually seeing it in person.  I felt like I was seeing a part of Ella that I had never known about before. 

Only In New York

Signs I've spied on my walks recently:

(Do the math.)

Trying To Kill Grandma

Poor Grandma.  She thought she was prepared for New York.  She bought new hiking shoes.  She started walking daily at home to gear up for the workout she was sure to get in New York.  She had no idea what we were about to put her through.  I hope we didn't scare her off for good.  I know she'll sleep for the next week, at least.
Here is a taste of our whirlwind week together.

Waiting for Grandma.  Flag reads, "Welcome to New York, Grandma!"

We dragged her through Central Park...

...and through museums...

...through tunnels...

...and subways.

Mom and I got a day alone together while the kids got to see where Kevin works on Take Your Kids To Work Day.  Apparently it was a great day complete with a "Pinata Jungle" through the cubbies, Easter crafts, lots of candy...they even got to design the magazine's cover. 

While the kids played at work, mom and I had a Mario Batali-themed day.  We spent hours wandering through Eataly and then had dinner at his restaurant Lupa and got to check out Greenwich Village.

Saturday morning we did another cooking class in our building's lounge area - this time with an Easter theme.  More sugar.  Just what we needed.

 (These cooks are too cool for cooking school)

And thank you Grandma for bringing a little bit of sunshine with you!

(This is the roof deck off the lounge area in our building)

We realized that we hadn't completely destroyed Grandma yet so after the cooking class we dragged her down to Chelsea to walk the High Line - an old raised railroad that sat decrepit for years and was almost torn down until some people decided to fix it up and make it a gorgeous walking path.  It winds through the second story and around some crazy buildings.

I can't believe that Grandma didn't want to go out again that night for dinner.  So Kevin and I got a date night with free babysitting and ended up at this crazy 1920s speakeasy that is only entered through an unmarked door inside a coffee shop.  We followed a well dressed couple through the door and discovered Bathtub Gin.  There seem to be a lot of these hidden, unmarked places with secret entrances in New York City and I can't wait to find more of them.

After a few fancy dinners we decided to keep Easter brunch casual and take Grandma to a new neighborhood.  We popped up to Harlem and ate in a beer garden called Harlem Tavern and enjoyed Mimosas and Bloody Marys while listening to a live jazz quartet.  We were kindly invited for dessert at Maeve's house up in Washington Heights.  It was so nice to spend some of Easter among a large family gathering, even if most of it wasn't our own, for our first holiday away from home.

We sadly put Grandma on the subway to the airport this afternoon.  It was a terrible, awkward goodbye because her train was there right when we got to the station and she had to rush onto the subway without hugs and kisses goodbye.  Both kids started crying as soon as the train pulled away and Holden continued to cry all the way back to our apartment.  We love you Grandma and miss you already!