Category: family activities

Happy New Year

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Every year we throw a small NYE party that I like to call “Feral Child New Year’s Eve.” Basically, we let the kids run around the basement and watch movies while the adults have grown up time upstairs. It’s always a fun time and each year the kids stay up later and later. This was the first year without any injuries to any of the children! Woo-hoo! (I’m kidding people, stop dialing CPS.)

This year people brought over their musical instruments and just about everyone took turns playing or singing to the best (or worst, sorry Jimmy) of their abilities.

Here’s a little video of the night, though there’s a lot of people missing as I only started taking pictures after midnight; was having a bit too much fun earlier. What better way to ring in the New Year, than to be with friends and make our own music?

Xmas Half Pint X-games

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Our new (as of last year) Christmas day tradition is to go skiing.  Last year poor little girl had to sit in daycare while the rest of us had fun, but this year she is old enough to start skiing! I was a little apprehensive but she has such a little go-getter personality that I thought she would be just fine.

I prepped both kids by showing them kids ski videos on youtube.  Some of those kids are a-mazing, like this one little girl who’s been skiing since she was 16 months old and competed in slalom races at the age of 6.

We dropped both kids off at ski school–don’t they look perfectly ready for the mountain?

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Eric, Sapana and I took off to enjoy the mountain for the day.  Even though there hasn’t been a ton of snow, there were still some great runs to be had and it was probably one of my most fun days on a mountain, ever. I kept waiting for my phone to ring, telling me that the girl was cold/tired/hungry/bored and I needed to come pick her up.

It never did! She LOVES skiing! As soon as I picked her up at the end of the day, she asked me, “We come back ’keeing tomorrow?” with a big, big smile on her face. I asked if she’d take one last run to show me how she did. She got very excited, and pointing to the magic carpet told me, “Mommy, dat wug moooves!” (“Mommy, that rug moves!” for those of you that don’t speak her language.) Up she went, and here she is rocking it down the mountain:

Not to shortchange the boy, he had a great day also:

Here’s hoping you all also had a fun holiday this year, filled with family, laughter, and good food! 🙂

Pierogies

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Pierogies! As you might remember from last year’s post (and the year before) on the same topic, we make these half-moon delights each holiday season to devour on Christmas Eve, continuing a tradition from Eric’s grandmother. This year, the girl really got into it, starting by trying to eat all the sour cream that goes into the dough with her bare hands.

Don’t worry, germophobes! We made her wash her hands after that. And then the rolling:

and the stuffing

aaaand 10 dozen (yes, that’s right) pierogies, ready for boiling and sauteeing and gobbling up!

Of course, it was all a little too much for one of our helpers, and while the rest of us stuffed she snuck away and we found her here:

We’ll wake her up when the eating begins.

Grand Lake vacation

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Since this seems to be blog catch up day, I’m going to post about our summer vacation about a month later.

In August, we all found ourselves with a long weekend off and thought, let’s get out of here! Now, others might just take off and find a campground.  I prefer to come home to a stove and a hot shower and something between me and the bears besides a sheet of nylon. All the cabins I looked for were booked, but I was able to find a VRBO condo in Grand Lake that looked nice.

We had such a great time.  The first day we drove up leisurely, stopping on the way in Granby, maybe? I can’t remember–one of those tiny mountain towns. There was a great road side stop with a playground and a kids’ fishing lake. We stopped for a break and a little fishing. Did we catch anything? Uh, no.

The condo was nice and backed up to a nice open space where the kids could run around and be free. We went to check out Grand Lake and later that evening we walked across the road where there was a lake and tried again for fish, and again didn’t catch anything.

The next day we went back to Grand Lake and  rented a family kayak from these guys: http://mountainpaddlers.com/.  I was a little worried about how the girl would do with this, but it was fantastic! We were one of the first few people out on the lake, before all the annoying motorboats, so we had a peaceful kayak around the lake.  The highlight was seeing an osprey nest up close, and then seeing one fish and grab one out of the water!

After that we just hung out on the “beach” for a while, which was just fine with the girl.

Later that day we went for a short hike and more fishing.  It was so, so beautiful at this little lake.  I never tired of seeing the osprey flying overhead and skimming the water, hunting for fish.

I even tried my hand at fishing.

Again, we didn’t catch anything, but had a great time all the same.

Our last day, we took the long way back home and drove through Rocky Mountain National Park. We happened upon a ranger guided hike for kids! We had to wade through some tall tall grass, and at the end he had the kids draw pictures of animals that had adapted to their environment.

Then it was time to head home, but not before one last stop for fishing.

And…HE CAUGHT SOMETHING. A FISH. A real live floppy fish was on the end of the line.  We were so surprised we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves! While reeling the little guy in (it was maybe 6 or 8 inches long when we saw it) it wriggled its way off the hook and swam away. It was so exciting! I sort of get the whole fishing thing now, even if you do have to deal with a dead animal at the end of it all if you’re successful.

We loved it and will definitely head back.  It’s not that far away and one of the nice things is that all the out of state tourists go to one of the big mountain towns, so it’s largely Colorado families out there and it’s a nice low-key environment. Without any bears.

NYC day 5/6

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We woke up the following morning. At 10 am. I haven’t woken up at 10 am in God only knows how long. Somehow another hour passed before we actually decided to do anything, and for some unknown reason I agreed to go for a run in Prospect Park. 3 miles? Sure, why not. I made it for a mile and a half before I started walking, and considering when I’d gone to bed, I think that qualifies as heroic.

After that we went out to “brunch.” By now it was 1:30 in the afternoon. I had done exactly one thing by 1:30. It was a bit surreal. I guess this is how single people spend their mornings. I mentioned this to my sister, who narrowed her eyes and said something along the lines of, “Yes. This is why I’m exhausted by 11 am whenever I come to visit you.”

The rest of the afternoon was a pleasant stroll through the Village, some shopping, and then a mad dash through another short lived rainstorm to go to a movie.

Afterwards we met up with my cousin Meghana and her boyfriend Sumeet, at another chic speakeasy with exceptionally delicious drinks–bay leaf martini, ginger lime mules, and some fancy version of a dark and stormy.

Walked out on to the street for some late night pizza (that claimed, like every pizza place in New York, that theirs was the Best Pizza in New York City) and then back home to Brooklyn.

You will note I haven’t mentioned the boy at anytime since he left with his grandparents. This is because I didn’t speak to him at all during this time. Partly because my phone was out of juice and couldn’t be charged (for uninteresting reasons), though I was clearly reachable through my sister’s phone. My son, who has never spent the night away from his parents in another home, was entirely uninterested in speaking to either myself or his father. I had a twinge of sadness but was also happy that the little guy was so comfortable there and is independent enough to not need us all the time. This is how it starts, I suppose. One day they can’t even poop on their own and then the next thing you know you get a call from Botswana telling you that they’re moving there permanently.

The boy was having a blast with his cousins, staying up late, fishing, having water balloon fights and far too busy to be bothered with us.

The next day he came back, somewhat reluctantly, for a cab ride to the airport and a thankfully uneventful flight home. On a side note, I have decided that a plane is the perfect place to watch Jennifer Lopez movies. They’re light, fluffy, mildly entertaining, and it doesn’t matter much if a bit of the movie is cut out by announcements. You know what’s NOT a good choice to watch on a plane? “Air Force One.” Even scanning through it to get to “Monster in Law” gave me palpitations.

Some of the little things I want to remember from this trip–how the boy brought a few handfuls of oak seeds and tucked them into his pocket. Whenever he found a little patch of dirt in Manhattan he would surreptitiously pull one out and throw it in. Riding the subway back after a long day and singing “Let It Be” together to pass the time. Those delicious drinks at Pegu Club.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention the knock knock jokes. The boy kept trying to tell us these jokes that were awful. By the end of the trip, the exchanges went something like this. “Hey Mom,” he would start. “Can I tell you a knock knock joke?” “Honey,” I’d reply, “No. You can’t tell knock knock jokes.” Now this may sound harsh to you out there reading this, but you’ll see–I’m right. He’d pester and pester, insisting that this time he’d get it right and I’d eventually give in.

“Ok. Knock knock,” he’d begin.

“Who’s there?” I’d ask, warily.

“Why was the pancake sad?”

“Why was the pancake sad who?”

“Because of the waffle!!” He’d say triumphantly.

“Honey, that’s not a knock knock joke. That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“Really? Can I tell you another one?”

Over and over and over again.

And last but not least, these incredibly creepy ads that they have all around New York on the sides of bus stops. Far away, the boy has his eyes closed, and when you get closer his eyes open and he has an orange in his mouth, to advertise that a certain prepackaged high-sodium artificial food product sold to feed children now contains fruit. Wahoo. At one point, though, the boy would only have one eye open and it was incredibly weird.  You’d see everyone walk by recoil slightly, and this is what I must now share with you.

NYC day 4

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The next day we took the train back to Grand Central. We got into the big atrium, looked at the constellations on the ceiling. I expected the boy to be wowed by it all. He looked around at the place, looked up at me and said, “Mommy, this place is kinda small.” I guess you can’t impress them all. I also begged for just one reasonable picture, but was denied.

The least crazy shot I got

Then to FAO Schwarz, which looked a lot smaller to ME than I remembered it. The boy had no trouble tracking down a Lego Star Wars book and a little kitty for the girl.

Then we met up with my in-laws and after  a fun lunch with the cousins and grandparents, they all whisked him away to their house for the weekend.

Zachary and his cousin

Grace, the boy, and Zachary

I stood on the corner of 5th avenue and 50th street and watched his green dinosaur raincoat disappear into the crowd. He didn’t even turn around. And I started to miss him.

I think when we think about having children, we all have something that we can’t wait to share with them. For Eric this has been taking the boy to baseball games and listening to music. For some maybe it is cooking with them or riding bikes. For me, I always dreamed of the day I could travel with my kids, take them to new places and introduce them to the rest of the world. My parents made it a priority to have my sister and I travel to India as frequently as possible when we were children, and I am incredibly grateful for it now. It made me realize that the rest of the world does not live the way we do, and it made me a much more flexible person when it comes to travelling. While New York is still clearly the Western world (at least the part that we visited) it’s a decent first real travel trip.

Back on that Midtown corner, I realized that this was the first time in years that I’ve been alone in a different city. It felt great, so freeing. I stopped missing the boy.

I headed into the subway to find the Habu yarn shop. Habu is a Japanese yarn company with only 2 retail stores–one in Tokyo and the other in New York City, and I just had to check it out. They make some beautiful, unique yarns–silk wrapped stainless steel, bamboo wrapped copper, and fine merino. It’s on the eighth floor of  a nondescript building. You have to know it’s there to find it, which adds to its allure. I walked into a small room filled with beautiful colors, laid out rather precisely.

Many delicious colors of silk wrapped stainless steel

There was no one in the front but in the back room I could hear what sounded like a sewing machine rattling away (I’d later learn this was a yarn winding machine) and women chattering in Japanese. I looked around for a bit and then announced myself.  A woman popped her head in front, told me to look around and ring the bell when I was ready, and then popped back into the back room. Unbelievable. I could have taken anything I wanted, really.

Crazy looking straw yarn! For Rumplestiltskin, perhaps?

I finally settled on yarn that looks like paper but is made of linen, a fine cotton and a pretty thick and thin silk. I tried not to buy anything in orange, but couldn’t resist.

Then I headed a few blocks over to meet a friend that I studied abroad with many many years ago and whom I hadn’t seen in well over ten years, a fact that we figured out by dating her tattoos. It was so, so fun to hang out, catch up, and find that she is the same heartfelt, caring and sweet person that I knew back then, just all grown up.

After that, my sister met up with us and after saying goodbye to my friend, we headed out for a night of bar hopping at chic speakeasy lounges, which Sapana tells me is the “new hot thing.”

Pouring into bed at 3 am, I slept happily, knowing that I had nothing to do in the morning except take care of myself.

NYC day 3

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After a few days of trying to figure out exactly where we should meet up with Rebecca and her family, we finally settled on meeting at the New York Hall of Science out in Queens. I figured, why not? Maybe I should try to hit all the boroughs during this trip.

An hour later, there we were. I should know this by now, but I always forget how long it takes to get around New York. I mean, it looks so small! And in Denver, no trip takes an hour unless you’re going somewhere, like to the mountains. It certainly doesn’t take an hour to go 12.5 miles on a normal day, unless you’re a true Denver person and insist on running, and then complain about your slow 4.8 minute mile pace because you really should have been able to get it down to 4.75.

The Hall of Science is pretty cool-the big draw is the huge outdoor science playground.  Technically, there are laminated cards explaining the science behind all things in the playground. In reality it’s packed with children run amok. The boy took to Rebecca’s kids as if they were long lost friends and they scampered about. In the back of the playground area is a small area with trees–they loved getting lost among them and exploring the forest.

Water wheels

 

Big Spidery Web Thing

 

Fun with prisms!

We then piled into the car and headed up north to Scarsdale. Rebecca’s house is beautiful and it was so incredibly quiet. It was like a vacation from the city, and was nice for the boy to be able to run around to his heart’s content. It was also so wonderful to see Rebecca. There’s something about old friends that is comforting and easy. I wonder sometimes if it’s even possible to make the same types of friends after a certain time–I will never spend as much time with any people I know now as I did with people from college and medical school. Your life becomes focused on your family (to borrow a phrase) and that is certainly where my  energy goes. Back then you have hours of time that you spend with other people–those hours now largely go to my own family, which I love, but sometimes lament how hard it can be to make friends. It just seems to take so much longer than it did back then.

Before I left, we got one last picture together, and asked the boys to get in the frame with us.  They technically obeyed, though not quite how I was picturing.

And then, back to New York!

Wabi Sabi

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In the children’s section of the library the other day, I spied a book titled “Wabi Sabi.”  I’ve been hearing a lot about wabi sabi these days because it’s all over  modern home design blogs (another obsession of mine). The idea, as it relates to home design, is that not everything in a modern home needs to be sleek, metallic, completely finished. Something simple, quiet, old, comfortable is also beautiful. I checked out the book without reading it and brought it home.

Later that afternoon, sitting on our decidedly non-wabi sabi couch, I read the book to the boy.

It begins with a zen proverb: “An old pine tree can teach you the sacred truths.”

“But,” the boy began, “what does it mean? How can an old pine tree teach you?”

“Just let it roll around your head for a while, kiddo.”

So we went on–the book is about a Japanese cat named Wabi Sabi who sets out to learn the meaning of her name. Along the way she meets various creatures who give her hints and finally (*spoiler alert*) a wise monkey who teaches her what it means to be wabi sabi. The illustrations are torn-paper collages and quite beautiful. Each page also has a haiku on it, which the boy is familiar with from the Jon Muth books I mentioned earlier.

One of these haikus starts by talking about something being alive and dying at the same time. “How can that be?” he asked.  I love moments like this, when you can see the little gears in his head turning.  When he hears a new idea and tries to process and make sense of it in a way that he can understand. It’s almost as if you get a window into the elasticity of a child’s brain. The page has an illustration of fallen autumn leaves. “Well, I said, it’s like those leaves that have just fallen.  They’re still a bit alive, but they’re dying also.” “Oh,” he said, not entirely getting it. Still, he loved the book.

A few days later, while walking to the bus stop, he spied a dried out yarrow bush. “Too bad that plant died, Mama,” he said.

“Not entirely, kiddo, look–there’s green leaves at the bottom. This plant comes back every springtime.” I said.

He gasped, “It’s alive and dying at the same time!! Mom! This is Wabi Sabi!”

And so it was. Since then he points out everything that is wabi sabi, sometimes a bit incorrectly, but so happy to have learned for himself just what it is.

Gender Identity

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Last night, the family was in a odd configuration in which the boy was in the bathroom, on the toilet, with the door closed and the rest of us were sitting outside. You know that seems to happen sometimes?  Anyway, a conversation ensued which went like this:

Girl: I girl, you (pointing to Eric) boy, mommy girl!

Eric: What about your brother?

Girl: Ummm…boy!

Me: What makes someone a boy or a girl?

Girl: ‘Cause! Just ’cause!

Boy (from inside the bathroom): Hey, girl, let me tell you.  I’m a boy because I have a penis and you’re a girl because you don’t.

Girl: I have penis, too!

Me (yelling through the door): She says she has a penis, too.

Boy (not missing a beat): Well, then, she’s a boy.

Glad that’s been cleared up.