NYC Part 2: The Kids Had a Blast

Quynh:

While on Spring Break in NYC, Quynh learned to wave. While walking through Chinatown, she waved at anything and everything from her perch on Minh's back in the ergo. At dinner one night, the waiter came over and said hello to her. She stared back at him. Then, 30 seconds after he left, she waved emphatically in his direction. Waving? yes. Timing? not so much.

Quynh also realized, while on vacation, that diaper changes are a stupid boring waste of time and she won't stand for them anymore. Gone are the days when she'd be still for changes. And gone are the days of cute little wriggles -- feeble attempts to get away. This girl now means business and it takes 2 adults and a toddler to get her into her PJs at night. Oy.

Quynh enjoyed two swims in the hotel pool, though her pleasure was derived largely from the disturbing behavior of constantly trying to drink the (inexplicably) salty pool water. Yech.

While in NYC, Quynh had her first: scallops, dim sum, ice cream, and cheesecake. Not a bad haul.


Tai:

At the Bronx Zoo, Tai's refrain was "what's gonna be the next am-ma-mul?" The second we arrived at any animal, he asked what was next. This is in stark contrast to last September at the National Zoo, when he was content to look at the pigeons for 15 solid minutes.

The trip to the zoo did, however, mark a major milestone in Tai's life. He took his first ride on a carousel not sitting on the Lame Stationary Bench. Up until now he's always been afraid to ride on the horses. But this carousel wasn't horses. It was bugs--all manner of bugs. Tai asked to sit on a red ladybug, but they were immediately taken by all the little girls. So we had to settle for a white spotted beetle, which we assured him was just a different type of ladybug. This big step paid off, and he was brave enough to ride on a horse at the Central Park carousel the next day. This is awesome because Minh and I were sick of sitting on the damn bench.

Tai's impressions of Manhattan? "There's a lot of stairs in New York City!"

What was his favorite part of the trip? "The subway because it's loud and goes super-duper fast!" Clearly, he would have been content to ride the subway (standing, holding onto a pole, of course) for hours. Who needs to go to a museum? We could have entertained him all day for a mere $2 in subway fare.

We did, however, go to the Museum of Natural History with several of his buddies from school. The kids were interested in the exhibits for about....10 minutes. The rest of the time was spent on snacking, pottying, and jumping off benches while the adults were all too tired to intervene. Near the end of the museum trip, Tai started begging to go back to the hotel and nap. Sorry kid, the hotel is in Jersey and it took us an hour to make our way into the city this morning.

NYC Part 1: Country Mice Belong in the Country

Minh and I hadn't been to The Big Apple in about 14 years. Needless to say. we were not the right people to be preparing Tai for the trip. Our first day in Manhattan Tai asked someone where we buy the tokens for the subway and was promptly laughed at and told that those were phased out in 1998. Whoops! Sorry, kid. Last time your Daddy and I were in Manhattan there were tokens.



One Day 2 Minh and I split from our Friends Who Know New York to venture out on our own and meet up with some old college friends who work in Manhattan. We needed to get ourselves from Central Park to Times Square and were told it was easy and would only take 15 minutes. Being a bit shy of taking the subway ourselves, we decided to take a cab. So we exited the park and found ourselves at a busy intersection. I walked to the edge of the sidewalk and tentatively waved my hand as if to say, "um...excuse me?....taxi? please?" After 10 minutes we decided this was not working. Maybe we needed a better corner? So we looked up our destination on our phones and decided to walk in that direction and continue to try to grab a cab. But then we saw that it was only 14 blocks, so we walked the whole way. This took more than the 15 minutes we had allotted and caused Tai to fall asleep in the stroller about 10 minutes before dinner, but we got there.



After dinner in Times Square we needed to get our butts all the way back to the hotel in Jersey. Gulp. We had our instructions. Take the A Train to 175th then get on the 186 bus. The friends we were dining with live all the way out in Queens, but graciously offered to walk us to the subway station. I accepted their help and told them they just needed to get us to the right station and we'd be fine from there. But when I asked them how we know whether to go "inbound or outbound" they decided then and there to accompany us all the way to the bus station. In the end, they went many miles and probably an hour out of their way to see us safely onto the 186 bus back to Jersey.



The only problem was we weren't sure where to get off the bus. I was goofing around with my phone, not paying any attention, when Minh said, "are you watching? we have to request the stop we want." Ugh, I looked out the window and didn't recognize anything, so we decided we'd already missed it. So we hit the stop request button and got off, somewhere in New Jersey, at 9pm. Certian that we'd missed our stop, we immediately did a 180 and started walking in the direction the bus had come from. I pulled up the hotel address on my phone and noticed (after 2 whole blocks) that we were going the wrong way. Apparently, we got off the bus a few stops too early. After that self-guided Walking Tour of Englewood, NJ, we made it back to the hotel by about 9:45pm. The next day we found ourselves on the 186 bus again. By this time we were seasoned travelers and it was daylight, so surely we'd get it right. That time we only got off 1 stop too early. We'd just about figured the whole bus thing out when it was time to head back home.

The Many Faces of Tai

Pneumonia Tai

• is feverish, uncomfortable, and pathetic
• is given unlimited juice and television, and much pity
• wakes at 4am unable to stop coughing and crying
• but then "naps" from 10am to 3pm

Healthy Tai

• refuses to brush his teeth
• has learned to "sass" his parents, using the strongest language he knows. ("I'm really gonna open this door!" and "I'm never ever gonna go to bed!")
• glances sideways at a parent as he yanks a toy out from under his sister, causing her to fall over
• makes us miss Pneumonia Tai, just a bit

Daylight Savings Tai

• comes out of his room every 7 minutes from tuck-in (8:30pm) until 10:15pm. (Note, Grey's Anatomy loses something when you have to pause it 9 times.)

Did I say I was looking forward to our trip to NYC? The one where the four of us all have to sleep in the same room (two to a bed) for three nights? I'm just glad Q's still nursing, because that's my excuse to sleep with her. She crowds me and she wakes 4 times a night, but at least she doesn't kick and spin around like a Toddler Sun Dial in the bed. Good luck, Minh.

NYC Will Never be the Same

That's right, the Country Mice are packing their Costco Luggage with their poly-blend sweaters, $30 jeans, and sensible shoes, and heading to The Big City.

Luckily, we've roped some friends into being our Free Tour Guides, and we plan to meet up with some folks who live down there and know their way around. I'm now only slightly scared that my little family will get lost or separated. I'm much more scared by the thought of 3 days in a row with no nap. Not only is Tai unpleasant to be around when he's tired, but I worry that three days in a row will set some sort of precedent and he'll decide to give up his nap thereafter. Oh, the horror.

But, setting my anxiety aside for a moment, I'm very much looking forward to this trip. Tai is beyond excited because (a) we're going to see dinosaur bones, (b) we're going to the Bronx Zoo, and (c) the hotel has a pool! (I remember when, as a child, I didn't care if we were going to Idaho on vacation, as long as the hotel had a pool).

We'll actually be travelling with Tai's best friend and meeting up with two other buddies from school at the Museum of Natural History. What more could a kid ask for? This trip promises to provide education, entertainment, life-long memories, and (most importantly) fodder for some decent blog posts.