the pieces of my life

There are two main reasons I don’t post: one, I have nothing to write about. Or two, I have so much to write about that I can’t find the time to sit down and when I do sit down, I don’t know where to begin. It’s been more of the latter. At the moment, Doodles is in kindergarten (I started to write preschool–still can’t wrap my head around having a kindergartener) and Pie is actually, kind of, sort of playing nicely behind me. If this post ends abruptly, you’ll know it’s because “playing nicely” turned into “complete meltdown,” which is what happens every day. The question is the when.

I’ve had two trips to New York, a kindergarten conference, holiday shopping, and house building shenanigans. But that’s not what’s compelled me to blog today. Today I blog because my bedroom smells. Specifically, of bologna. Why does my bedroom smell of bologna? I have no idea. No one in the family eats bologna. Why does that compel me to blog? Again, no idea. But lying in bed last night, unable to get the smell of bologna out of my nose, I thought, “I should blog about this.” So here I am.

Actually the whole apartment smells. I sort of think that this might be a reflection upon my cleaning skills. I’m pretty good about vacuuming almost daily (the kids eat over a rug), but the nice bottles of environmentally-friendly cleaners I bought in a fit of optimism when we first moved in have remained pretty much untouched. But they sure do look pretty! Our contractor feels pretty optimistic that we can move back into the house the first week of February. That’s just about seven weeks. And we’re spending a week and a half of that in Miami Beach for New Year’s. So that’s just five and a half weeks of smell. Clean? Or stink? For five and a half weeks, I can live with stink. I’m practical like that.

While I’m here, I might as well tell you about New York. The first trip with the family over Thanksgiving was actually a real success. The kids were engaged and had fun and basically left me alone. Perfect! On Thursday morning, after we all watched the parade, I cooked and my dad, well, I guess he kind of supervised, the Nana, the Tweedle Twirp, and the Adam took the kids ice skating at Bryant Park. A lovely (but ill timed–even with a pre-cooked turkey, I was off) dinner ensued. The next day, the foursome of my family headed to the Fire Museum, which was quite interesting, although I made the mistake of attempting to explain 9/11 to Doodles. I thought he’d think it was something removed, a long, long time ago, but when he realized it was only seven years ago, he said, “Mom, that’s not long ago at all!” After the museum, Adam and Pie met up with my parents to go to MOMA. Pie loved the video exhibition and the “painting with the farmer. The green one.”

Meantime, Doodles and I went shopping in SoHo. The boy is game, I’ll tell you. I haven’t really blogged much about it, but I’ve become quite crafty in my old age (“crafty” in a Martha Stewart way; not a Beastie Boys way). I haven’t written much about it primarily because I plan on giving some of my handicrafts as gifts and I don’t want any of the surprise given away here. I really wanted to make a pilgrimage to a fabric store I remembered from my days as a New Yorker, and Doodles was actually very well behaved. Of course, we stopped at Evolution and we picked up a pair of glittens for him, but he sat almost patiently while I went through button boxes. We then headed up for the East Village to Tweeds’s apartment, which is better than any store for the toys in it. We had to tear Doodles away to head for lunch at Benny’s.

And with my quesadilla grande, I’m going to leave you for the moment. No, no meltdowns (yet). Just time to run off to kindergarten pickup….

It’s a sad comment that we live in a ‘burb fifteen minutes outside of Boston, and yet when we say we’re going into “the City,” we mean New York and we tend to do it about twice as often as we go into Boston.

Normally we host Thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Yes, that’s right, I enjoy hosting Thanksgiving. I love the planning. I love the cooking. I love the decorating. I even love the cleaning up after and that satisfaction of a fridge full of leftovers. Yes, I am a geek. Yes, my mother will wonder how she raised a daughter like me after that paragraph (rebellion against childhood upbringing, of course).

But, obviously, with our tiny little apartment kitchen, our dining room table in the middle of the living room, and the general disarray of our house life, we’re not hosting this year. Next year, ah, next year with my 36″ stove and wide counter space… But this year, we decided to make the trek down to the City to have Thanksgiving with my parents and the Tweedle Twirp. Of course, my parents’ city apartment is considerably larger than our home apartment, but the kitchen is 1) not that big and 2) completely not set up for cooking. It’s set up for getting bagels from Murray’s and burgers from New York Burger Company. In preparing what to cook (my mother’s exact words, “You can have Thanksgiving at our place. But I’m not doing any cooking!”), I quizzed my father. “Do you have a muffin pan?” I hear rustling and clanking, “Ah, no.” “Do you have a baking pan of any size? 8 x 8? 9 x 9? 9 x 13? Even a pie plate?” “Ah…no.”

So we’re not exactly cooking a full meal. The Tweedle Twirp ordered a turkey, stuffing, gravy, and green beans (who really likes cooking green beans?) from Balducci’s. I’m making bourbon-spiked sweet potato (and, yes, I’m going the gauche route and still added marshmallows; the bourbon is for me, the sweet potato is for my kids), sour cream-thyme muffins, and cranberry sauce. Tweeds is baking the pumpkin pie.

There’s the background. Yesterday I convinced Adam to work from home. He got up early and got online while I buzzed around like a madwoman. Got Doodles to school. Plopped Pie in front of a very rare morning of TV. Packed. Cleaned. Organized. Got us all out the door and to Doodles’s school by 10:30 a.m. (“We’re late! Come on, Pie and Adam!” “It’s only 10:25. Doesn’t it start at 10:45?” Does this man live on some planet where the time is adjusted funny? Whenever I tell him a starting time, he adds at least fifteen minutes to it.)

We make it to his school just on time to see our little pilgrim enter the cafeteria for their big feast. Each class made a part of the feast. Doodles’s class made corn bread. Another made soup. One made apple pies. And the fourth made–just like the pilgrims–fruit kabobs. After the feast, all the pilgrims got up and performed for us, such Thanksgiving classics such as “Albuquerque Turkey,” “The Tom Tom Song,” “There Are Many Things I’m Thankful For,” and “Tony Chestnut.” The singing ended at 11:14. At exactly 11:14:02 I had those kids in the bathroom and then out the door. We were on the road at 11:22. Which is awesome because apparently a few hours later there was an accident that caused the Pike to close a bit.

We made it down in decent time; we took on short cut and hit traffic outside of New Haven and Hartford and there was one relatively long pit stop when Pie had to pee, but we arrived in the city (meaning we crossed into the Bronx) about 4:30. It took a bit to get into Manhattan proper, but the great moment was when we got lost in Central Park. In my defense, in all my years living in New York, I never, ever drove. Really. Even on my own student film shoots at NYU when I had to rent a van, I got someone else to drive.

Why were we in Central Park in the first place? I had the brilliant idea that Adam would drop me and Pie off to watch the Thanksgiving Day balloons inflate (Doodles was invited as well, but he had no interest). I got the directions from Google Maps, which told us to take the 79th Street transverse. Only the 79th Street transverse was closed. So we entered at 72nd street. Which apparently takes us back up to 110th Street. By 5:30, Pie and I decamped at Central Park West and 81st.

In my mind, I envisioned a casual stroll among the balloons, a little oohing and ahhing, and then a quick subway back for dinner with everyone else. Not quite…

As we got to the corner, where we could see Buzz Lightyear and Spongebob we were stopped by barricades. First we were just stopped as Mayor Bloomberg passed. And then we were stopped as we were told that we had to enter the balloon inflating at 79th and Columbus. Pie was a real trooper and just kept periodically shouting, “New York! Yea, New York!” We headed over to 79th and Columbus. And waited. And waited. In masses and masses of crowds. Just waited. Finally we got to cross over and into the barricades where we got shuffled down to 77th Street.

We were smushed in, but that Pie didn’t care. “Where are the balloons? Where are the balloons?” Finally, after about an hour, we made it to the balloons. And Pie was entranced. “Who’s that? Who’s that?” We saw Pikachu (who I originally said, “Look, it’s Homer Simpson!”) and Ronald McDonald and Hello Kitty (who I said, “Look! A turkey!”) and Dora the Explorer (recognizable at 1000 paces), Snoopy (who I said was, “I have no idea who that is”), the Energizer bunny. At the end of the row was a Smurf. “Pie, I said. That’s a Smurf!” At that moment we came to a sudden halt (I will say that we were able to get right up to the barricades and see the balloons and it moved at an easy pace) as the mayor gave a press conference just in front of the Smurf. “That’s the mayor,” I told Pie.

Finally we made it down 77th Street. I did gave Pie the choice of going to the balloons on 81st Street or heading back down to the apartment for dinner. She thought about it and decided to head back, which was good because it was already after 7 and I was hungry.

We headed to the subway. You’ve never seen a kid so excited to be on a subway. “It’s the subway! Yea, subway! Why isn’t the subway moving? Oh, that’s silly! It is! Is this our stop? Is this our stop? Is this our stop? Yea, subway!”

Back at the apartment, we got ourselves some burgers, came back, played. My kids did nap in the car. Their normal bedtime is 7 p.m. At 10:15 Pie finally fell asleep. Doodles fell asleep shortly after.

So 10:15 bedtime. Any guesses on wake up time? Yep, 5:45 for Pie. A cranky 5:45. But she got up. And since she was up, we had the obligatory conversation about whether or not to go see the parade in person (general advice is to arrive by 6:30 a.m. to get a good place to see the 9 a.m. parade). My daughter exhibited a rare moment of wisdom and opted for the TV.

Happily, the Nana was up soon, so Pie had a playmate while Adam and I went back to sleep. I got up just in time for the start of the parade. The kids were very enthusiastic and sure enough, Pie yelled, “I saw that last night. I saw that bunny last night! I saw that star last night!” And as that giant Smurf passed by, that great big blue inflated Smurf, Pie yelled out, “Look! It’s the mayor! Doodles, that’s the mayor!”

And that’s our Thanksgiving until now, 9:30 a.m. Doodles is playing with Tinker Toys. Pie is doing naked tushie dancing in front of the parade on TV. Adam and my father are off picking up a pre-cooked turkey. And we’ve got a whole weekend ahead of us. Tune in for more turkey adventures. And happy Thanksgiving!

This past week has to have been one of the busiest ones yet. I feel like it was nonstop, and I’m not ready to collapse in a heap at my computer. What have I done? It’s all a big blur.

Adam had a night out with friends, I had a night out with friends (hi Elizabeth! It was fun!), I had (have) a job I’m working on, a preschool project that I got suckered into doing, a family Shabbat dinner, a meet-up with a fellow blogger whom I’d never met before but was in Boston for a conference, a women’s community Passover seder (no Passover hasn’t started–this was a fun, feminist version that involved many tambourines). Throw in some boot camp, a bit o’ running, and a zillion chores (dentist appointment? Made. Eye doctor appointment? Made. Camp for Doodles? Taken care of. Car inspection? Done.) and that’s what I’ve been up to.

Oh, and our little trip to New York. But this time for a day. Eight whole hours. Yes, I know how fun that sounds. Surprisingly it was incredibly uneventful and actually quite a success. I almost hesitate to blog about it, because nothing untoward happened.

After not nearly enough sleep, I roused myself from slumber at 5:30 on Saturday morning. Slapped together some sandwiches, woke the rest of the family, and we were on the road by 6:15 a.m. The purpose of the trip was dual fold: My mom has a show up right now at Nohra Haime Gallery (that’s it on the walls and on the table in the pic; if you’re in NYC go see it–it’s up till April 26) and there was a breakfast at 9 a.m. and we thought it would be fun to go to. And then the other reason is it was my dad’s birthday (random aside: did anyone else realize that when your parent’s age equals the year of your birth, your age will equal the year of his or her birth; so for instance, my dad turned 68. I was born in 1968. And this year I’ll turn 40. My dad was born in 1940. Try it–it works).

We made the trip in 3 1/2 hours, having parked and made our way to the gallery by 10 a.m., and my father was dutifully surprised. We spent the morning at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, which was cute but nowhere near the level of the Boston Children’s Museum. We had a fabulous deli lunch at Artie’s (it’s the kind of place that has pickles and slaw on the table for you a la Wolfie’s), kids got their subway rides, and then hung out at my parents place. I walked around a bit, hit a flea market. We had cakes from Citarella. At about 6:30 p.m., we put kids in pjs and headed home. Both kids were passed out before we left the Bronx. We were home by 10 p.m.

I wish there was more to tell you. I wish we’d had a meltdown or two or Pie peed somewhere or something, but it was such a manageable trip, I’d consider doing it again.

When I was 26, I quit a good job, packed up all my belongings, spent three months driving cross country to reinvent myself. When I was settled in Seattle, I’d sometimes look at my life in wonder and think, “Wow, if I could that, I can do anything.”

When I was 28, I spent six and a half months picking kiwis on a kibbutz and then I spent a month and a half idling my way through Eastern Europe. When I survived three weeks in Bulgaria, I really felt it was an accomplishment. “If I could make it through Bulgaria on my own,” I thought, “I can do anything.”

When at the age of 32 I let my guy friends pressure me into riding a single-day double-century bike ride from Seattle to Portland (previous bike ride length at that point: 16 miles), I can’t begin to describe the feeling of elation I experienced when I, alone and tired after fourteen hours on a bike, crossed into Portland, Oregon. “I just freakin’ rode my bike two hundred miles!” I thought. “I can do anything!”

When at the age of 36, with a fourteen-month-old son, I completed my first marathon, I thought I was a rock star. Sure, it took me over five hours, but I did it. “I ran twenty six point two miles!” I thought. “There is absolutely nothing I can’t achieve.”

Last week I pushed my boundaries. I left my kids for the first time, I cross-country skied for the first time, I ran in seven degree weather. You guys all know how macho I felt. I am a freakin’ woman of steel.

Until. And then. Except.

Somehow, somewhere, for some reason, I decided it was a good idea to take my two children–my two-and-a-half-year-old toddler and my four-and-a-half-year-old preschooler–to New York City. In a car. By myself. For fun.

I have discovered that thing that I cannot do: I cannot survive thirty-six hours alone with my children.

I am broken.

But let me start at the beginning of this debacle. Doodles has been obsessed with Egypt, pharaohs, and pyramids for a long time now. Remember his birthday party? So I got this great idea (please read “great” dripping with sarcasm) of taking him to the Metropolitan Museum to visit the Temple of Dendur. “Wanna go to New York?” I asked him casually. “YES!!!!” came the resounding response.

Truth be told, I dilly dallied on the whole thing. I checked with my parents (who live in NYC part-time) and my sister (who lives there full-time, but works a hectic schedule) if they’d be around. I checked the weather. Hmmm, looks like snow. I thought about it. And then I realized, “This is a really stupid idea.” I basically told everyone we weren’t coming. “That’s probably a good idea,” my parents told me. My mother had foot surgery and has been hobbling around on a cane, not ideal for sightseeing with little ones. My sister would be teaching all day. Both my parents are currently spending a lot of their time searching for a bigger apartment.

Alas, the road to insanity is paved with stupid ideas (that’s how the expression goes, right?). On Wednesday morning, I was poking around Priceline. It was a gorgeous morning and I thought, “I can handle this!” so before I could come to my senses: Boom! I’ve booked us a room for two nights in New York.

That’s when the panic started. I called Adam, “What the F was I thinking? I can’t do this!”

“Don’t go,” he said.

“I already paid for the hotel room.”

“So what? We can eat the cost if we have to.”

But I, for one, am never one to “eat the cost,” frugal soul that I have, so while Doodles was at a playdate, I frantically packed us up, sinking ever deeper into a depression over my recklessness. After all, what does a four-and-a-half-year-old ever remember? Take a kid on a thousand dollar vacation to Paris, and what he’ll talk about is the bug he found crawling across his shoe at the Parisian playground.

So I sent Doodles off on a playdate and I packed up as fast as I could, trying to anticipate everything they’d need. It would have helped if I had tried to anticipate what I might have needed–in which case socks and deodorant might have made their way into my bag, and yes, I was a wee bit ripe by the end of the trip. Yet I wanted to keep everything to my one bag, their ice skating bag (I had visions of Wollman rink), plus toys in each of their backpacks. And a bag of snacks for the car.

The trip down was pretty uneventful. I picked up Doodles from his playdate and cleared up the confusion (“You’re taking him to New York to see the temple where the Jews pray?” I clarified it was where the Egyptians prayed, but he didn’t quite believe me). Pie slept for about an hour and a half and woke in relatively good spirits. Doodles was thrilled to get Triscuits–Triscuits!!–from a vending machine. Neither one got at all fussy till we’d already hit the Bronx. Including the one bathroom/vending machine stop, we made the trip in just barely over four hours. Found the hotel with no problem. Parking was just two blocks away. Trip is already a success!

We hop a subway to head to my parents’ apartment. Pie utters the comment she is to make every time we get onto the subway, “I LIKE the subway!” and Doodles scrambles for a window seat, despite my repeated insistence that we are underground and there is nothing to see! “Yes there is!” he insists. “Look! A wall!”

Dinner a Benny’s Burritos (the West Village one) is fine, although surprise surprise both kids make a dinner of chips. We leave my parents at about seven to head back to the hotel. “I LIKE the subway!” “I need a window seat!”

Out of the subway. Walking back to the hotel. And then it starts. The screams. “I want to go home!!!!” I assure Pie we’ll be back at the hotel in minutes. “No, HOME! I want to go home! RIGHT NOW!” For two blocks the munchkin is screaming and she won’t be appeased till we get back to the room and I turn on the TV. I make up a lovely nest for them on the floor–they’re so excited to sleep on the sleeping bag!–and in three seconds, they’ve happily ensconced themselves in the bed. So much for spacious living. Of course, Pie is incapable of falling asleep without some tears, and she cries for about thirty minutes, while I lie right next to her, ignoring her as I read my book. It’s really the only thing to do.

And then, they’re all asleep. It’s not easy to sleep with the two monkeys next to me. They end up head to head with each other, all cozied up, and then the next thing I feel is four little feet kicking my side as they’re lying perpendicular to me. But at least I can stop worrying about one of them falling out of the bed and I can drift off…

…until 2 a.m. Which is when the screaming started. Did you guys know that there is no toddler-appropriate TV on at 2 a.m.? Really! I know it’s shocking. I didn’t know how to calm the munchkin who has not only woken me and her brother, but I’m pretty sure is waking the whole hotel. So for an hour, she gets to watch The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It was the most appropriate thing I could find.

At 4 a.m., she drifts off into sleep, and I’m determined to eat the second night’s hotel cost and head back. Yet, at 8 a.m., when everyone is awake, I feel delirious from lack of sleep and think, “We can make it one more night. Right?”

Surprisingly, the day was somewhat of a success. The kids loved the Met. Doodles was fascinated by the mummies and the Temple of Dendur and Pie seemed to enjoy the Degas collection (one of her favorite books is Dancing with Degas). My mother met us for a bit and Tweeds came when my mom left. We had lunch at the mus
eum and when Tweeds had to go to work, the kids and I took a bus down a ways (“I LIKE the bus!”) and I let them go hog wild in Dylan’s Candy Bar.

Back at the hotel room around 3, and there were no complaints when I let them gorge themselves on their candy and watch PBS. Pie was tired–I didn’t bring a stroller out with us–but she revived quickly when presented with chocolate. I didn’t revive quite so quickly. The wear and tear of corralling those two through the museum (“Don’t touch that! Don’t wander off! No, you can’t eat in the museum! No I won’t buy that! Don’t touch! Don’t touch! DON’T TOUCH!”) took a toll on me and all I could do was let them rest so that I could have a minute of downtime (“Mommy are you going to sleep? No, Mommy!” Pie says laughing. “You have to wake up! WAKE UP, MOMMY!!”) We met my parents for dinner again and Pie told them her favorite part of the day was, “I like the Degas,” and Doodles told them, “I got to watch TV… during the day!”

On Friday a snow storm was predicted so I wanted to get out of town nice and early. It was nothing major–just two to four inches–but I figured why risk traffic and snow. Of course, by the time we woke up at 6:45 a.m., three inches had already fallen and five to seven inches was expected, so I rushed the kids through their hotel breakfast (“Can I have a yogurt? Can I have an orange? Can I have more cereal? Can I have a bagel with cream cheese? Can I have another waffle?” and “Just a waffle for me. Okay a little cereal. No milk in it!”), and I managed to trudge through the snow with Pie in the stroller, the skate bag around my neck (“Why didn’t we go ice skating?” “Uh, I took you for candy instead.” “Okay!”), the clothing bag also around my neck, and the diaper bag hanging precariously as I discovered that, no, a $10 umbrella stroller cannot make it through the corner snow banks. But we got back to the car, and headed out in the mess.

The trip home was painfully slow–I skidded a few times on I-95, the snow was so bad–and the kids were edgy. At one point, I’m on the Triboro bridge, looking for signs for the Bruckner expressway. I’m trying desperately to see through the snowy fog and the moron car in front of me doesn’t have his lights on, making him nearly invisible. The snow is coming down fast, and I need to make sure I don’t accidentally head toward the George Washington bridge. I’ve shushed the kids as I’m trying to not skid across the road, but I keep hearing a “Mommy! Mommy. MOMMY!” and finally I yell back, “What, Pie? I’m trying to concentrate here,” and she asks, “Can you open my window?” and then adds, “Pleeeeaaaase?”

The “No,” didn’t go over that well. So she then turns to her brother: “Doodles? Doodles! DOOOOODLES! Are you awake, Doodles?” As if he had a choice.

Just over five hours later, we’ve arrived home. Of course, I needed to shovel my way into the driveway, as the storm followed us, but soon we were inside, ready to collapse. Pictures, by the way, are posted.

Would I do it again? Sure. In three years. With a nanny. And a lobotomy.