Category: vacation

New York 2012, continued

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We had a BIG NIGHT planned tonight and after the lesson of the previous day, scrapped plans to go to the Statue of Liberty (which is closed anyway) and instead visit the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

We walked there from my sister’s apartment, which she insisted was not far. Of course, she was thinking in adult terms of not far and not 4-year old legs, so it got to be a bit long getting there. As soon as we got inside the gardens, though, the girl ran about merrily and the second we hit pavement after leaving, she began to complain about walking.

In Brooklyn, the size of kids that are in strollers is truly, truly astonishing. I know there’s already a tumblr on the topic, but I couldn’t help but stare at these very large children in tiny strollers. I guess for Brooklyn, this is the equivalent of a car and you simply need to get from Home to School and then Work in a short amount of time and can’t be leisurely strolling. Some of these kids were 7 or 8, though, easily and could have been on a scooter next to the parent, if they were in a hurry. I’ll keep this in mind the next time I strap my kids into the minivan to go less than a mile away, which I do frequently. Back to our previously scheduled programming…

After what need up being a one and a half mile walk, we got to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. So, so pretty! We took some time to smell the roses, literally.


There’s a lovely discovery garden with some nice little tree-y nooks

And a compost bin where the girl got to do one of her favorite activities: digging for worms.


Then, we went back to Sapana’s place for a well deserved nap!

And in the evening, Times Square! On the way to the subway, the girl swung her arms side to side and sang as loud as she could, “I Loooovvveee Meeee! I love me! I so fancy! I so fancy!” Ah, if only she can keep up that self-confidence her whole life.

Soooooo BIG!

And someone was VERY excited for the Ferris Wheel inside the Toys R Us building

After that, we went to watch

The girl has never seen Mary Poppins, so before the show we had a little conversation that went like this:

Girl: “Mom, what this show about?”

Me: “Well…it’s about two kids and their nanny.”

Girl: “And then the kids die?”

Me: “No! They don’t die!”

Sapana: “Well, that would be more interesting then your boring description!”

The show was surprisingly delightful, albeit with some tongue-in-cheek drug references, like, did they really need to keep taking spoonfuls of “medicine”?And while you could take alcoholic beverages into the theatre, they were served in…sippy cups. What cracked me up was the number of groups of adults without children that came to the show and merrily sang along with Mary.

Late, late taxi ride home with a sleepy little girl, to get ready for the next day of adventure.

New York 2012

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As you may know, every year I do a trip to New York with one kid and alternate kids every year. This year it was the girl’s turn to come to New York with me.  She was so, so excited to go, as was I.

With this trip, I let go another one of my parenting tenets that was established before having children, which was “Children do not need to watch screens while on the plane.” Idiotic, really. Had I been wise, I would have plugged my kids in much sooner.  To this day I have NO idea how my parents managed to travel with small children to India without any assistive devices. I was incredibly happy to get out “How to Train Your Dragon” and plug both of our headsets in. You know, that is a very good movie, even if I did have to fast forward through a few scary parts and constantly shush the girl as she yelled out “TOOTHLESS!!” in joy, unable to hear how loud she was.

First stop once arriving in Brooklyn was getting froyo at Culture. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to eat froyo again, anywhere.  It’s that delicious. Bad foodie that I am, I did not take a picture.  I’m wondering if it actually happened.

The next day it was a bit rainy so we briefly braved the Brooklyn streets,

had a first (remembered) encounter with a subway train

And then went to the Transit Museum. SO COOL. All about how the subway system was created and how it runs, though the girl mostly loved driving the buses.

My favorite part was the vintage subway trains they had downstairs, starting with above ground Brooklyn trollies from the late 1800s. The girl decided to use this time to pick her butt.

The trains are decked out with vintage ads and admonitions as well

Still good advice, if you ask me.

We then hopped the subway to the Natural History Museum.  By this time the girl was an old hand at the trains and kept warning us to “Stay away from the yellow lines or you get squished!” Always the safety officer, that one.

I love seeing the dino skeletons.  It’s astonishing to me how incredibly huge they really are.  It steels my resolve not to go back too far should I ever happen upon a time machine without first going to the future and picking up a jet pack so I can escape quickly. Or an invisibility cloak.  That would work.  But they might have a good sense of smell, so the jet pack is still the better idea.

Rawr!

You know, one thing I forget about New York museums is that they are NOT friendly to little children.  I feel like the Denver museums make a real effort to have things be open to all kids and accessible, whereas the ones in New York seem to make a point of being more for adults, really–crowded halls, tiny dense print and few interactive features.

After that, we went to get Thai food and the girl had a huge meltdown, which should have been entirely expected given that we’d been traipsing around 2 boroughs for the entire day. Poor thing.  She recovered to her usual self and we headed back home and had an early bedtime, with plans to fit in a lot less the next day.

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!

NYC day 2

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Today was a very, very full day.

The boy is doing great through all of this, though I’m realizing that he has no sense of crowds or how to navigate in a dense urban environment. In Denver, where it doesn’t much matter where he gads about as long as he’s going in our general direction, he has a lot of freedom in public spaces. He doesn’t quite understand exactly why he can’t hop about like a rabbit on Adderall at the subway station and why I nearly pull his arm out of his socket when he does so. He also has NO conception of personal space. I think he’s so used to sidling up to people that want him to be next to them that he doesn’t quite get that most of the world does not want a small child underfoot. That said, I find that New Yorkers are not particularly accomodating of children who are in their way.

Today, we had to take a little detour as a result of my forgetting our Lion King tickets. FedEx promptly delivered them to Sapana’s office this morning so we took a little side trip to the Flatiron district to retrieve them.

That done we went to the Natural History museum where they have a very, very cool exhibit all about sauropods. While it’s not large, it is one of the most intriguing dinosaur exhibits I’ve ever seen because it just makes the creatures come alive. There’s a lot of focus not just on the skeletons but on the lungs, heart, stomach, muscles and growth of the animals. Did you know that sauropods had storage sacs in their lungs?! When they breathed in air it would go into the lungs and the storage sacs. Then when they exhaled, the storage sacs would exhale that frest air into their lungs. How efficient! Otherwise all that air has to go up and down that long neck too much. And their teeth! Not as grindy as you would think–much sharper for stripping plants of their leaves instead of chewing them up. I could go on and on. I love dinosaurs.

We then went to the Ocean Life section to see the big blue whale.The little speck in front of the TV screen at the far end is the boy.

After that was a cab ride to the Theatre district/Times Square. The most exciting part of this was that the boy got to ride in a car without any sort of car seat. He was giddy.

Then….

Now, I’m not a big musical person, but this was delightful. The opening number in particular is so captivating! I must confess, I always cry when I see the “Circle of Life” scenes in the movie, and the musical was no different. Tears, people, tears streaming down my face. The boy was transfixed by the trampling scene in particular.

Then a quick trip to the Upper East Side for Dylan’s Candy Bar! The boy was, well, like a kid…

My sister pointed out to me that in the space of two days, we have been to 1) the Upper East Side, 2)Brooklyn, 3)Flatirons, 4)Upper West Side, 5)Times Square and 6)Midtown. And we have done this with a 5 1/2 year old in tow who is proving to be a very sturdy traveler.

It is so fun travelling with him. He has a few moments, but for the most part he is engaged, interested, active and never, ever complains.

Rainy day in Times Square--note all the umbrellas

Tomorrow, up to Westchester!

NYC day 1

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The boy and I are in the big city for the week!

The day did not get off to an auspicious start as, halfway to the airport, I realized I had left our Broadway tickets on our desk at home. My husband was less than amused, and later grudgingly took the tickets to FedEx to deliver them to us tomorrow morning. After that it was a fabulous day.

The flight was incredibly smooth which I entirely credit to our highly experienced pilot.

We met up with Sapana at her place, had a quick bite to eat and then figured we’d head to the Met for the last hour or so.

The knights made a big impression:

As did the mummies:

And then, well, the museum closed.  The boy protested and successfully snuck past a few museum guards to catch just a few other exhibits.

Outside, he and Sapana did their best fountain impression:

We milled about for a bit and then decided to go for a quick walk in Central Park, but were distracted by the Ancient Playground, which is great! The boy had a fabulous time on the  (sort of) ziggurat.

Heading home, tired, he created his own subway perch:

And then we finished with a delish dinner of empanadas at a Latin restaurant in Brooklyn:

We came home and played a game of “whoonu” with Sapana, Sachin and Sapana’s roommate. The game consists of cards with random things listed on them, such as “baseball games,” “meatloaf,” and “dinosaurs.” You’re supposed to pick the cards that one of the players likes the most, and it rotates around players.

When it came to my turn, the boy chose “pot pies” for me. Now, I hate pot pies, and was about to rank that my least favorite choice. Unable to contain himself while I was deciding whether “roller coasters” or “bicycling” was my favorite, the boy began to giggle, “pot pies!” I changed strategy and quickly named pot pies as my absolute favorite thing in the world, then bicycling, roller coasters, and lastly “taking naps.”

He’s in bed now, ready to start another day of adventure tomorrow!

Parenting ideals

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While not an original idea by any means, I was definitely a better parent before I had children.

I’d see a child misbehaving in public and watch how his awful parent handled it, knowing that my child would NEVER act that way and if they did I’d handle it SO much better than his terrible mother.   There was a whole list of things of things I definitely would or wouldn’t do as a parent.  Among them, my child would never wear anything with a character on it, would never order off the children’s menu, and would never misbehave in public.  Cut to a few years later when I’m ordering mac and cheese for my screaming toddler who’s wearing a “Toy Story” shirt.

I think everyone has certain ideas of what is most important to them as a parent.  I’m not talking about big things like religion–more the little weird things that we think will make us exceptional parents, not just average ones.  Things we get to be all sanctimommious about.  Some people refuse to feed their child anything jarred.  Some insist on their kid listening only to Mozart. I’ve heard of one woman who is so anti-processed food that she even makes her own ketchup.  Her own KETCHUP, people.  In the end, I don’t think most of these make the huge difference that we like to think they do.

I’m not without my own set of parenting  idiosyncrasies, though I’d never go so far as to make ketchup. (Now I’m curious. Wow, this sounds delicious.  I might have to backtrack on that ketchup comment.)

One of my big things before I had kids was TV.  Surely, when I had kids, my precious puppykins would never watch any TV until they were at least 3 years old.  For the boy, we held out until he was a bit closer to 2 years old before he was watching anything on a regular basis, and even then never saw a full length movie until he was closer to 3.  The only way that we made it this long is because I’m not a stay-at-home mom.  If I was, the kids would have had their daily TV hour starting in infancy to provide me with some sanity. The girl was corrupted much younger and already runs around asking, “Watch teebee? Nemo? Shaaks? Scaow me!” (Translation: “Can I watch ‘Finding Nemo’ in its entirety? Those sharks are somewhat frightening but brilliant representations of how we all face our own demons.” God, she’s bright.)

Still, I never quite understood the need for having a television in the car.  I HATE televisions in cars.  I don’t understand why children need constant entertainment, and electronic at that.  What’s wrong with talking to other people in the car, looking out the window, reading books or even (gasp!) being bored for a few moments and letting your mind wander?  Usually my kids grab a book to read in the car or we have some nice chats.

Recently, though, my ideal was tested.  I drove from Denver to Moab by myself with both children.  I’d rented a minivan so that my parents, who were vacationing there, could ride back with us.

It’s one thing to be able to go for short car ride with small kids without resorting to television, but would I make it for 7 hours?

My first plan was to not even let on that there was any TV capability in the car.  This lasted all of two minutes before the boy checked out the car and started pushing on panels and yelped, “There’s a TV!! Can we watch TV?!”

Sigh.  I said that we don’t watch TV in the car–we look around, we talk to each other, we read books, we listen to music. Disappointed, the boy strapped himself into his carseat and we took off.  Truthfully, I fully expected to play a movie, but wanted to see how long they’d make it first.  Or how long I’d make it.

The first hour and a half was fine–they read books, played with a few toys, and looked for bighorn sheep on the side of the highway.  We stopped in Vail for food, which ended unceremoniously with us racing through Vail village to get back to our car while holding the girl away from me as far as I could. In a moment of great parenting brilliance I’d decided not to bring a spare diaper. She pooped once and I figured she could go commando because surely, she wouldn’t poop a second time.  I was wrong.  Considering how different we look, I half expect some people thought I was kidnapping a little blond girl and was waiting for someone to call the cops.

The rest of the trip was dotted with a few stops for bathroom breaks and gas.  Glenwood springs is beautiful to drive through.  Then we crossed into Utah and hit 2 hours of the most boring drive I’ve seen.  It almost rivals Kansas in lack of interest.

I kept waiting for the inevitable, “Can we watch TV now?” from the back seat.

But it never came–we made the entire way there (and later the entire way back) without once popping in a video.

Unbelieveable.  And you know what? The ride was actually fun. We listened to a few science podcasts, sang along to Dan Zanes and the Dino5, and had some good conversations.  (As my Facebook friends know, my favorite one began with the boy asking me, “Hey, Mom, could we get a dead body sometime to make a mummy out of it?”)

More importantly, I now have one pre-parenting ideal that I’ve been able to carry through with, which clearly makes me an exceptional parent.

And now I have to go watch TV.  30 Rock is on!

Jiffy Jaffy Smiley

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Knitting takes a bit of a backseat over the summer, what with gardening, hiking, the triathlon, and the fact that it just seems so warm.  Still, I don’t think I could stop entirely and did manage to get a few things done over the summer.

Meet the newest member of the family, Jiffy Jaffy Smiley, or just Jaffy for short.

This little giraffe has a lot of personality and is very popular.  He gets chair rides, gets read to, and goes swinging.

Jaffy was well loved and fought over by both children.  I intended him for the girl (hence the pink/purple), but the boy LOVES him.  He carries him around and took him on our recent trip to Moab.  On the way home, the boy uttered those dreaded words, “Mommy, I have to throw up.  NOW.”  I’m going about 75 mph on I-70.  I try to pull over as fast as possible, but as I’m swinging the car over, I feel a few splatters of vomit on my neck.  I get out of the car and look at my poor boy, covered in peanut-butter scented disgustingness.  Awesome.  I stand there for a moment, not sure what to do, and then a 16-wheeler rolls by me and I realize that I’m standing in a really, really dumb spot.  I quickly get back in the car and we get off at the next exit, thankfully only a quarter mile ahead.  In the parking lot of the gas station, we do our best to clean up the floor of the rental car and change the boy’s clothes.  My parents are in the car with me, so I have help.

That’s when the boy sees Jaffy.  He’d been holding Jaffy and the poor giraffe had taken the brunt of the projectile.

You know those scenes in war movies, where there’s two buddy soldiers, and they get through a firefight?  At the end, one of them looks forward and says to the other something like, “Jimmy? Man, I didn’t think we were going to make it through that one.” He then turns to look at Jimmy, and sees that his head’s been blown off. “Jimmy?! Jimmy?! Nooooo!!!!!”

That’s what it was like when the boy saw Jaffy, soaking wet in slimy goo.  Up until that point, he’d only seen the clothes and the book that he’d gotten wet. “Jafffffyyyyy!!!” he cried. I did my best to rinse the toy off in the gas station bathroom, stuck him in a plastic bag and tied the top.  I tried not to cry as I thought about the months of work that could be lost in one fell swoop.  Worst case, I supposed, I could take him apart and restuff him.

Back at home, I hosed him off in the utility sink and then stuck him in the washing machine.  I love Lion Brand Cotton-Ease for this exact reason–you can just toss it in the washer and it looks brand new when it comes out.  He’s stuffed with a synthetic fill so that was okay in the wash, too.

After 45 minutes, out he came, smelling clean and fresh and ready for more play.  I think of it as the resurrection of Jaffy.

I’m delighted that he survived and is so well loved.  It’s really fun making toys, like you’re creating this new being, though it felt weird to be sewing into him, like it hurt or something.

Or maybe I’ve watched Toy Story one too many times.