Thing # 6

Thing # 6: Go to a parade.

 


There are so many parades here each year. The Mermaid Parade in Coney Island, the West Indian Carnival right in our own neighborhood, the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village... alas, we missed them all this year. Vacation got in the way, one parade was cancelled, etc. Luckily for us, we were in town for Thanksgiving. Macy's Parade!

We had mixed feelings about going to this parade. The crowds, good lord the crowds! When you get to your spot two hours before the show begins, they're manageable. Come 9 am though, it's like being in a clown car. A clown car full of clowns who don't know each other, don't necessarily like each other, and don't want any other clowns touching them. And then there is, of course, the clown from Long Island who pushes his way to the front - in front of all the people who have been waiting in their spots for two hours! - because "I've got kids with me." Really? You've got kids with you? Why didn't you say so? Clear a path, everyone! This guy has KIDS with him!

Ahem.

We put up with it all though, even going so far as to look forward to the parade, because we knew he would love it.

And he did. Parade = success!

Sandy

       
It's weird. I feel like I should say something here. If I just put up another post with pictures of my kid, sweet-but-inane content, and exclamation points... it won't be right. It won't be fair somehow, and it won't feel right to me. But then what to say? Talk about my personal experience with the storm? That's ridiculous. It's trivial, self-centered, and in the face of such a broad swath of destruction it's a waste of time. Do I talk about the fear, then? My certainty that this was NOT the storm of the century, or even a once-in-a-generation storm, but the start of something new? I don't want to do that. Not here, anyway. I'll save all that for myself (because contrary to what the world keeps telling me, keeping things like this to myself actually feels better than sharing with anyone else).

I'll just keep this little paragraph then, and sit with this silence for a few days. That feels like the best thing I can do.

Fishkill Farms

   

It's an unfortunate name, but a great setting for autumn fun. Going to a fall festival was like Storm King - something I'd been trying to do for years. God bless you, Zipcar. Our membership has made us feel like so many things are possible. Even if you have to suffer through NYC traffic on your way to those possible things. And on the way back, too. *Shudder*

So Fishkill. Up in the Hudson River Valley. Hayrides. A store selling pies. Hot apple cider. A bouncy castle (maybe next year, Nils).

Doughnuts!

Chickens!

Pumpkins!

Chairs! (Made of pumpkins!)

And best of all, apples. A giant orchard of Winesap, Empire, Ida Red, Golden Delicious, Macoun. We came home with 25 pounds of 'em, apples we had picked ourselves. Imagine that. Nils did his fair share of the work too, once properly tempted:

Waaaay up high...

And he enjoyed the fruits of his labor. Though I don't think we were supposed to eat any apples before we paid for them. *Cough cough*

The best thing right now

 
The best thing right now, the absolute best, is the view out our living room windows.

We live on the 5th floor of our building. That's high enough to look out directly onto the treetops. It's all green, and when the sun is setting a golden light tends to shoot in between the leaves. We leave our curtains open from spring to the end of autumn - ain't no one seeing through to our apartment. The leaves are too thick. Sometimes I pretend that we live in a treehouse, that if I wanted to I could just walk out onto one of those branches.

The leaves are beginning to change color now, and the maple seeds are drying out and browning. Any day now I imagine I'll see a few twirling down to the ground.

Toward the end of Nils's nap today I had about 20 minutes to just lay on my couch and look out the window. All my naptime tasks accomplished, NPR playing softly on the radio, a pillow beneath my head. Moments like these are rare enough that the sheer peace of it might have been enough, even without those lovely maples to admire.

Of those 20 minutes to myself, 10 ended up a catnap. This has been happening to me a lot lately. If I sit down in the afternoon, bam! Out like a light. This pregnancy has been just about as effortless I any I could imagine, but it has exhausted me nonetheless. Many times I have put Nils down for his siesta, then proceeded to take a nap myself. It has been wonderful to be able to get that rest (since my body is screaming for it), but those naps... sigh. They've been keeping me from doing everything else. All the cleaning, cooking, and logistical tasks I could be doing while Nils gives me a break. Instead, those things pile up around me until I lose it and start yelling at Oliver.

I know what this is. It's preparation for the arrival of Little Steffwomann. Once she's here, there will be no chance to catch up each day. I'm going to have to find a new way of doing things. Maybe I'll have to let some things go. I just hope that every once in awhile I'll find a few minutes in the afternoon to look out the window. You know, before I fall asleep.

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.