Storm King

       

   
It has become a joke between us, Storm King. I've been talking about it forever - "we need to go to Storm King." "Once the weather cools down, let's do a day trip to Storm King." "Once spring is here, let's go to Storm King." It's far enough away though, and hard enough to get to, that our best-laid plans have never matured into action.

Until this past weekend. Finally.

Storm King Art Center is a 500-acre sculpture garden, though to call it a "sculpture garden" misses the point.   "Sculpture landscape" I believe, is another term often used. It is about an hour and a half from the city, and... wow. No photos I took can do it justice; please believe me when I say that it is beautiful. The sculptures and the landscape work together, and the result is so much more than anything I have seen in a traditional museum setting.

An added bonus for us: it is child friendly. There is no way I would take Nils to an art museum. Storm King was different. Lots of open space to run around in, enough distance between us and the "normal people" to make shrieks and an overabundance of energy totally okay. He ran around with abandon:

Rolled around in the grass (with a little help):

Paused occasionally to maybe? look at the art?

Nope. Just looking for rocks.

     

An update on all of us

     
So we go to movies, bike around the city, visit relatives, etc. ... that doesn't begin to cover everything that goes on around here. Especially with Nils. There are so many details I want to share! Care to join me for an update?

Nils

Nils is the most fun to write about. He's just so dang cute! And he's constantly doing the cutest things... gah! It's too much. Some highlights:

He's talking quite a bit now. No sentences yet, but lots of words. Recent additions include "oatmeal", "poop", "mine", "tractor", "spoon", and "Nils". He's also speaking German! It makes up a very small percentage of his vocabulary, but it's there. He says (the German versions of) "car", "tree", "hot", "no", and "more". Pretty cool.

He loves all things transportation related. Cars on the street, fire trucks, buses, street sweepers... if you can think of it we've probably stopped to stare at it. His newest fascination: planes and helicopters. We live directly under a flight path (to LaGuardia?), and this being New York, there are constantly helicopters flying overhead. Paradise. When the drone of an engine begins in the distance, he will stop whatever he is doing and point up at the sky. 

More than airplanes or any other street-bound vehicle though, Nils loves the subway. He doesn't get all that jazzed about actually being on the subway (go figure), but he loves to hang out in a station and watch the trains come and go. Here he is below, keeping his eyes on the lead car of the 2.

He loves so many things! Running, slides at the playground, playing with "choo choos", reading stories, leaping into piles of dirty laundry, splashing through puddles and fountains...
    

Pushing his stroller...
    

He was a sweet, lovely infant. Without question though, this is even better. It just keeps getting better.

Oliver

Oliver continues to work hard. He's been getting a lot of 5:30 and 6:00 am phone calls from staff in India lately - issues they need help fixing before trading starts at 7:00. Can you imagine? You wake up, not to an alarm, but to a pressing need to "work! Work now! Wake up, your work day has begun!" Yikes. I'd need a caffeinated beverage and 10 minutes to sit and stare out the window first. He doesn't complain, though.

Much more relaxing for him: running. He's training for the marathon again this year, and this time I plan to take pictures.

And a final note: he is officially a U.S. citizen. There was a ceremony (cameras were confiscated... alas, no photos), a certificate, and ta da! The days of hassles at the border are behind him. I told him he needs to stop making fun of Americans now. He told me he was voting for Clint Eastwood this November.

Me

No photos of me (guess who's always behind the camera), but plenty of things to tell. They're all sort of jumbled together right now, so I'll just mention the big one: there's a girl on the way! She's due in mid February, and when I'm not feeling guilty for ruining Nils's life, (My poor little baby! What are we doing to you?) I'm pretty excited. We've got 22 weeks to go, give or take, and I'm trying to really make the most of these last months as just the three of us.
     

Thing #5

   
Thing #5: Go see a historic monument or marker.

This one was pretty easy to knock off the list. This is New York! So many notable things have happened here! So many places are famous for one thing or another. The real question was then, what to choose.

I decided that the Village and its environs were a good place to do a little historic site hopping. We could bike there (we're always looking for excuses to take the bikes out), and we could hit up a few different not-so-on-the-map places.

 Site 1: Teddy Roosevelt's childhood home. 

Did you know that President Roosevelt grew up in Manhattan? I certainly didn't. Here was his house, though, just sitting there on a quiet block of 20th Street. 

Site 2: Margaret Sanger's clinic. This unobtrusive building was the site of a bold new idea: giving women access to birth control. Controversial then, and strangely controversial in recent days. After we left I wished I had gotten a photo of both Nils and I - he is, after all, the product of family planning. As am I.

Site 3: the Triangle Shirtwaist building. I remember being a middle school student and learning about the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. The women working there had been locked in the 8th, 9th, and 10th floor factory to prevent unauthorized breaks. When the fire broke out many jumped out the window to their deaths. It was apparently a turning point of sorts for the rights of factory workers. At any rate, I'm glad no one can lock me in my office.

And then, since it was getting close to Nils's nap time, we cut short our tour of progressive New York history (another day, Stonewall Inn) and headed home. But not before a little bit of playground time.