New York, New York

Last weekend we went to New York City to celebrate (belatedly) my 30th birthday and to visit Chris’ Aunt Nancy.  We spent most of Thursday prepping the car and packing so that we could pull out of our driveway no later than 7 am Friday morning.  I believe we made it at 6:56.  Those with small children and/or hard to wake husbands, know that is no small feat.

Chris didn't have to drive the WHOLE way

Sadly, a mere hour down the road, traffic slowed to a standstill.  A kind man in a pick up truck headed south rolled down his window to inform us that we had absolutely no chance of making it north anytime soon due to flooded roads and detours.  But we had already cancelled our trip once because of Hurricane Irene, and it was the second time I had packed for the journey.  I whipped out my newly acquired iphone and began searching for alternate routes.

Two hours and several failed attempts later, we accepted the fact that Maryland has truly been designed with just one way out.  We waited (and waited) but eventually arrived in New York City a mere 11 hours after we departed.  Chris drove casually through the busy streets in route to Nancy’s.  I, the faithful navigator, sat in the passenger seat alternately using my invisible break, closing my eyes, hyperventilating, and yelling, “Chriiis!!” in a helpful sort of way.

After arriving safely at Nancy’s, the girls checked out every square foot of the glorious Brooklyn apartment.  Chris, Nancy and I enjoyed a delicious dinner of lasagna, salad and french bread; Nicole munched on cheerios, and Allison (my little french girl) proceeded to eat not one, but three, pieces of bread.  I suspect she was in heaven after all the 100% whole wheat bread we insist on most of the time.

The next morning we accompanied Nancy on her usual Saturday morning trek to the farmers’ market.  We shared a delicious vegan chocolate muffin (Allie’s choice), and Nancy introduced Allison to her milk man.  Yup, there are still milk men in New York City.  And the milk still comes in glass bottles which are returned and reused.  How awesome is that?

Prospect Park Farmers' Market

After returning all of our market finds to the apartment, we all walked through Prospect Park to the zoo and carousel.  By a fabulous stroke of luck, the Prospect Park Alliance was having an event where members could enjoy free access to both.  By an even more fabulous stroke of luck, Nancy was a member of the alliance.

Nancy and I took the girls on the carousel.  Allie picked out a pink horse (no surprises there), and insisted that Aunt Nancy be the one to accompany her.  Nicole and I chose the horse next to Allie.  As the ride began, Allie was all smiles.  She absolutely loves carousels and would probably ride one all day if we would let her.  I couldn’t really tell if Nicole was having fun, but I didn’t hear any terrified screaming so I assumed all was well.  The woman on a horse in front of us turned around and looked at Nicole.  I knew what was coming before she opened her mouth:  “Your baby is making the funniest face!”  Huh.  No surprises there either. :)

After the ride and once we had successfully begged, pleaded, and forcefully removed Allie from the carousel, we ventured into the zoo.  It’s not huge, but it’s pretty great for a zoo in a park.  I spent most of my time in the primate building, watching the baby baboons play and giving Nicole her bottle.  The others checked out the ‘farm’; rumor has it that Chris had the rare opportunity to milk a cardboard cow.

Once the girls were exhausted, we returned to the apartment for lunch and a nap for Nicole.  I volunteered to pick up tickets for a Broadway play while she slept.  The TKTS booth, offering half priced tickets to same day shows, was in downtown Brooklyn, and I figured I could make it there and back safely on my own.

I carefully mapped out the nearest subway station on my iphone and double checked my route with Nancy.  The walk to the station was pretty straight forward, and I was feeling like quite the savvy New Yorker by the time I effortlessly swiped my card at the turnstile and continued down the stairs to catch the train.

I proceeded to feel like a savvy New Yorker all the way to my stop and up the stairs to street level.  I felt much less savvy when I looked around and had no idea where I was or how I was oriented. 

Thank goodness for technology.  I spent the six block walk to the TKTS booth with my nose to my iphone, watching my blinking satellite position grow closer and closer to my destination.  Five minutes later, two tickets to ‘Jersey Boys’ in hand, I made the walk back to the station [almost] iphone free, and caught the train back to the apartment.

A few hours later I was back on the subway, this time with my hubby by my side.  We got off in Manhattan at 42nd street, the most happening subway stop in the world.  Times Square was jam-packed with other broadway goers, tourists, and probably locals as well.  Chris and I held hands all the way to the theatre, not because it was our first date since last May, but because if we didn’t hold on, we would have lost each other in the river of people flooding the street.

“Jersey Boys” was amazing.  The music was spectacular and the scenery was unbelievable.  I love live theatre, particularly musicals, so I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday present.

After the show, we grabbed dinner at an Asian Fusion restaurant and finished off our night by sitting in the newly erected stadium seating across from the famous Times Square billboard.  It was close to midnight, and the place was possibly more crowded than it had been when we arrived.  The city may never sleep, but thirty year old parents of young children certainly do.  We called it a night and caught the train back to Brooklyn.

The next morning we enjoyed New York bagels for breakfast and a leisurely walk to the playground before loading up the car and heading home.  Fortunately, the flooding in Maryland had died down, and the trip home was a good four hours shorter than the trip up had been.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I absolutely adore NYC.  Can’t wait to go back!

Boo

Nicole, 11 months

If you asked me what Allison’s first word was, I’d probably say it was ‘yes’.  At least that’s the first word I remember her saying clearly and understandably.  She probably said quite a few words before that, but since I didn’t write them down, I have long since forgotten.

To avoid such uncertainty with Nicole, let it be known that her first word is “boo”.  As in ‘peek-a-boo’.  Sure, it sounds more like ‘buh,” but we all know what she means.  The first time she said it, Allison was lying under our bed.  She was playing peek-a-boo with Nicole by occasionally popping her head out from under the dust ruffle.  If Allison didn’t pop out fast enough, Nicole would yell “boo!” emphatically until she reappeared.

Nicole has recently added another word to her vocabulary:  “Allison”.  To the untrained ear it sounds a lot like, “AAAAAAAhhhh,” but once again, her intentions are clear.  Most mornings, Allison likes to accompany me to Nicole’s room when she wakes up, and Nicole is always delighted to see her.  When Allie is not with me, Nicole whips her head around on the diaper changer while shouting, “AAAAHHHHhhh?”  This continues all the way down the stairs until Nicole spots Allison, at which point she grins and pumps her little arms up and down.  Perhaps she is trying to wave; it’s hard to tell.  That particular gesture looks a lot like the cheerio dance.

In other news: Nicole is eleven months old today!  She claps.  She waves.  She dances.  She started crawling right around 10 months, and she has become quite proficient at it.  She zips around, her hands and knees slapping noisily against the wood floors so that we can always hear her coming.  She pulls herself up on everything, and she recently started letting go.  She can stand unassisted for all of a half a second before she falls on her bottom, grinning and obviously pleased with herself.

Nicole now has 8 teeth, four on top and four on bottom.  She uses them to help keep cheerios inside her mouth and to chew on teethers, stuffed animals, wooden table legs and the occasional finger.  I wish I could say she used them to eat ‘real’ food, but until today she refused to eat anything but pureed baby food and dry cheerios.  Today, she scarfed down half an oatmeal cookie, which I assume she enjoyed.  She was pretty sad when it was gone.

Her two favorite games are “get the teether” and “This time I will beat you to the stairs.”  “Get the Teether” is Allison’s brain child.  Allie hurls a teether across the room and Nicole crawls toward it as fast as she can while giggling hysterically.  Rinse.  Repeat.

“This time I will beat you to the stairs” is slightly more complicated.  Nicole waits for me to be sufficiently distracted at the computer before taking off toward the stairs.  About half-way there, she stops and looks at me expectantly until I turn around and tell her, “No, Nicole.  No stairs.”  Then she squeals with glee and races the rest of the way to the bottom of the steps, laughing mischeviously until I scoop her up.  The game ends with a few good arm pumps, which I think in this case means either, “I’m ready for my victory cheerio” or “I WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!”

Irene

We started to take Hurricane Irene seriously last Thursday when we postponed our weekend trip to New York City.  A few of our friends that have lived in Southern Maryland for some time warned us that we should prepare to be without power (and water--we’re on a well) for at least a few days.

Those of you who follow my blog, Thirty by Thirty, know that I have been making a concentrated effort to rid our pantry of processed food items.  It’s been great for our health, but it’s not so good for an emergency.  We have very few items around that do not require refrigeration, preparation, or both.

Fortunately, I had already bought a few snacks meant for the drive to New York: about 10 granola bars, some simply fruit roll-ups, and a small bag of animal crackers.  Chris came home Friday evening with a couple cases of bottled water and two bags of cheesy popcorn to add to our meager supply of emergency rations.

Unfortunately, it had been so long since any of us had access to processed foods that we polished off both bags of popcorn and most of the animal crackers by Friday evening, a full 24 hours before the storm was expected to hit.

Saturday morning, we began phase one of our storm preparations.  We located as many flashlights as we could (2 wind-ups, one from the emergency kit of my car, and Allie’s pumpkin Halloween strobe light).  We filled our indoor swimming pool (aka the master bathtub) and the girls’ tub with water, and Chris pulled Allie’s blow up pool into the garage.  He also secured his garden as best he could, while I removed all of our non-perishables from the refrigerator (yes--I rescued the coke and placed it in our picnic cooler.  If I was going to be out of power and running water, I wanted to make darned sure I would not be out of cold coke).

Then we began phase two:  eat as much of our perishable food as possible.  We all had big glasses of milk, and Chris took care of the bacon.  Allison and I, for our part, made chocolate chip cookies with our remaining butter and some of the eggs.  Nicole, having no interest in perishable foods, spent her morning banging on the back door and watching the wind and the rain pour down.

It was only two o’clock when the power blinked for the first time.  Thankfully, I had done all the dishes and squeezed in one last shower, so I felt ready for the inevitable power failure.  We used our remaining few hours of electricity alternating between watching Strawberry Shortcake and the news and playing card games [No.  Sorry, Mommy, but Daddy already took my dolphin.  Go fish!].  At 4:45 pm, we lost power abruptly.

Nicole couldn’t care less, but Allison was devastated.  She kept pushing the power button on the TV hopefully and switching lights on and off occasionally.  “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll be working soon,” she asserted.

By 6:00 pm, the wind and rain were really picking up, but because there was no thunder or lightening, the storm wasn’t really bothering the kids.  They went to bed with no more fuss than usual and were asleep in no time.  We waited a few hours before moving Nicole into her pack n’ play in the hall and Allie on to the blow up bed in our room (the tallest trees are on their side of the house, so we didn’t want them sleeping in their rooms). 

Chris and I congratulated ourselves (quietly) on a job well done--it seemed that against all odds we would be getting a good night’s sleep regardless of Irene.  We fell asleep happily listening to the combination of wind and pounding rain (it actually sounded just like waves on the Oregon coast).  Our elation lasted only until 3 am when Allie woke up.  She was so confused, and later so delighted, to find herself in our room that she just couldn’t settle down again.  She ended up choosing to have a long ‘quiet time’ in her room by flashlight.  It was neither long nor quiet, and nobody got much sleep after that.

By Sunday morning, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.  It was still very windy, but gorgeous out.  Despite the extraordinarily fine weather, I was cranky.  Lack of sleep and modern conveniences is a bit of a deadly combination.  I stomped about with my swiffer sweeper and a bucket of water, alternately muttering under my breath and barking out orders until Chris had the good sense to suggest getting out to assess the damage.

Our property fared really well.  The backyard was muddy, but had very few leaves and branches strewn around.  One tree fell and landed about three feet from the side of the house, but there was no damage.  We decided to venture into town.  Some friends of ours were fortunate to have not only power, but an extra freezer, and we set out in the hopes of salvaging some of our more expensive frozen goods.

We took a right out of our driveway and made it around two curves before discovering a large tree, suspended by the power lines, blocking the road.  We turned around only to find more trees (and more down lines) blocking our alternate route.  Fortunately, there was a church driveway right before the trees, and we were able to get off of Happyland.

We passed dozens more trees that had already been cleared of the roads, and a couple of homes that were not as lucky as ours.  It was pretty obvious that the power would be out for some time.

Chris went back to work Monday morning, and the girls and I spent our days bumming showers and AC from friends who already had their power restored.  We would meet  for dinner after Chris got off work and return home for early bedtimes for the girls.

I missed the drone of the fan at night, which had been replaced by open windows and a loud chorus of cicadas and other creepy-crawlies that some lovingly refer to as ‘night music’.  To me, it’s not music at all.  I think of it more as the battle cries of millions of many-legged warriors waiting to infiltrate my house and bite me to death.  But I am prone to exaggeration.

At 8:30 pm on Wednesday, four days and four hours after losing power, we returned home from dinner to a tiny light by the door of our neighbor’s house.  I don’t think I have ever been so excited to see an illuminated doorbell.  The song and dance premiere of “We Have Power” was performed enthusiastically.

Allison headed straight for the power button on the TV and was allowed to watch just one show before bed.  I put Nicole to bed and then zipped through the house flipping on lights and plugging in everything with a power cord while Chris turned on our water pump.  Fifteen minutes later, the washing machine and dishwasher were running, the computer was on, and life as we know it (and prefer it) was back.

Good bye, Irene.  Don’t come again!