The Mensch Bench

Brady and I have been taking our morning walk to Central Park lately. It’s been a little cooler so it’s nice to take a longer walk in the morning. It’s so gorgeous there on a nice day.

I usually walk into the park at 84th and then around the Great Lawn and once Brady’s asleep I sit and read on a bench. I noticed that I was picking almost the same bench everyday. Most of them have plaques on them from the Adopt-A-Bench program. The bench that I have been choosing says this

It’s the Mensch Bench! I don’t know who Steve is or was or who his friend is that dedicated the bench, but I love sitting there.

Midtown is for the birds

Or for European tourists, whatever.

The church of Apple.

Today while my mother-in-law watched Brady I went to the Apple store in Midtown to get the husband’s iPod fixed. I had already been down there once to do it, but on that trip they informed me that I would need to make an appointment ahead of time online. How I was supposed to know this, I do not know. My plea that I had gotten a sitter just to come down there fell on deaf ears.

So this time, armed with an official appointment, I fought my way through the tourists, past the secret service-looking security people, down the spiral stairs, and into the heart of Apple heaven. Everywhere tourists were gleefully playing video games on iMacs, listening to their favorite tunes on iPods, and trying out the oh-so-awesome iPhone G3. I tried one since I was early, I could not for the life of me type on that touch keypad. But the people I know who have one love it.

My genius at the Genius Bar was extremely helpful and upon hearing the problem promptly gave me a refurb Nano for my husband. In the throng of people on the way out, I tripped up the spiral stairs and skinned the top of my foot.

St. Patrick's

Not knowing what to do with my baby-less afternoon, I struggled down 5th Avenue, gawked at the giant diamonds in the Tiffany window, and the Cartier window, and the DeBeers window, and the H. Stern window and found myself at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. My husband always says that going in there is like meditation for him. I find it a bit odd because to me, it’s a church, it’s a holy place with so much meaning – but I know that to a lot of the people there it’s just an attraction, some beautiful architecture, some history. But there is something very calming about it. I lit two candles and kneeled to pray and found a kind of clarity I had been looking for. Suddenly I knew what I wanted to pray for, and that seemed perfect.

That’s the wonderful thing about living in a huge, crowded city, you can always find pockets of calm within the storm.

Crawling is treacherous!

The boy is on the move.

Brady’s been crawling for a little over three weeks now and although he gets steadier, more sure, and faster each day – he still keeps hitting his head!

I swear each time one of his forehead bruises disappears he gets a new one. And he crashes at the strangest times. It’s not when he’s trying to climb the highchair or wildly chasing after the cat, rather, he whacks his head against the floor when he’s sitting perfectly still and reaches over for a toy or as he stops crawling in the middle of the living room and tries to sit back up. It’s amazing really.

I keep thinking that the other mothers at the playground will report me to Child Services. Brady has been sporting matching devil horn-placed bruises on either side of his forehead everyday on the swings. Thankfully the pediatrician thought it was funny, so I know it must not be anything out of the ordinary.

Here he comes!

Hopefully the pain will eventually help him learn to be more careful.

Seperation anxiety sucks…

and a Brady update!

Brady is now 9-months-old and separation anxiety and stranger fear have set in. He still loves strangers, he

This is how I do dishes now.

just doesn’t want them to hold him. I’m lucky to have my mother-in-law close, not working, and happy to come over and help me out. She comes over twice a week so I can do my freelance work, work on classwork, update my blog, whatever. About a week and a half ago I went out and left Brady with her and when I got back he reached for me and would NOT LET GO! He didn’t want to go back to her. I knew this was around the time for separation anxiety to begin so it didn’t concern me.

However, my mother came in for the weekend and we were having a great time. Brady was loving her and played with her and let her hold him, it was awesome. Until my husband and I had the audacity to go out for 20 minutes and leave him with my mom. He cried nearly the entire time we were gone, with real tears and great big gulping sobs! After this incident he was convinced that we wanted to leave him again and cried if I even went to the bathroom and left him with Grandma. Geez! The husband and I were all psyched to go for a run together, but we just couldn’t saddle my mother with the screaming wonder for that long. We had to settle for a trip to Barnes and Noble alone together after the kid was in bed.

He went in on Friday for his 9-month checkup where the doctor told us that this will probably get worse before it gets better. Super!

So now that the boy is a whole 9-months-old here’s an update.

He now weighs 22lbs and is 28.25 inches long! He has gained 14lbs 11oz and grown 8.25 inches since he was born.

He is crawling, pulling up, and cruising. He sort of says mama, dada, and no. Except they sound like numnum, ditditda, and ninininin. But he clearly means to address us and use the negative.

He loves to walk around if we’re holding his hands. He gives me raspberries on my belly and on his daddy’s arms and is seriously just a wonder. He is such a…well…a person now! Amazing!!!

to this!

From this...

Urban Sherpa

When we make our weekend treks to Central Park, Brady and his stroller become what my husband calls the Urban Sherpa. We load everything we could need into and onto his stroller and take off – another reason that I loooove my Bugaboo.

Hi, I’m Brady, I’m the Urban Sherpa. Today I am carrying: my diaper bag, my sun tent, an array of fun toys (blocks, a ball, keys), food from Dean and Deluca, a blanket, sunblock, Daddy’s shirt, and a bottle of water.

It’s really convenient to have that big bag under the stroller to hold all of our stuff. It’s an advantage to having a baby – my husband no longer has to listen to me complain about how heavy my bag is while we walk to the park.

No Sleep Till…

Well, actually there is still no sleep. God no, no sleep. I’m not sure that I can even still be considered a human at this point. I’m starting to feel like Christian Bale’s character in The Machinist – minus the anorexia and love for sad, unrealistically hot prostitutes. Seriously, this can’t be good.

However, we did go to Brooklyn on Saturday. The trains predictably were not running on the normal schedule, but we were prepared and 3 trains and 1 hour and 10 minutes after leaving the Upper East Side we arrived in Park Slope to visit with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend.

They recently moved in together and we hadn’t been to their new place yet. It is GORGEOUS! Right on Prospect Park West in an elevator building with 2 real bedrooms and a view of the Statue of Liberty. We ate lunch in the park, their dog swam at the dog beach, and Brady had a great time seeing new people. Their dog was much more tolerant of Brady’s affection than our cat, so Brady had a great time petting his paws and trying to climb his back. So cute!

Of course, once we were there we had to then get home again. Ugh. So 3 trains and 50 minutes later we again arrived home. Brady was pretty sick of the subway about halfway through the trip home, so the last half hour was less than fun. It made me miss the days when we didn’t have to worry about carseats and could just call a carservice once we decided that taking the subway home would blow. Such is life!

Now if we could just work on that sleep thing…

So I guess we don’t sleep anymore…

My husband and I were tricked by the apparently age-old ruse of “our kid is a good sleeper” at 4 months. At 4 months Brady was a dream. He went to sleep around 9pm and stayed asleep until 3 or 4 then got up to eat and went back to sleep for the rest of the night.

But at around 6 months or so it was over. No more sleeping until 3 or 4. Noooo. Now it’s wake up around 12 or 12:30. No more going right back to sleep. Noooo. Now it’s let’s play at 3am. This sucks!

Some people tell us it’s because he’s teething. He currently has 0 teeth. Some say it’s because he’s started crawling and can move around more now. I don’t know what it is, but I want it to stop.

Now, please don’t tell our pediatrician, but we are bad bad parents and we break all of the “good sleep” rules. We don’t put him down awake, I nurse him to sleep most nights, he sleeps in bed with us. There is a TON of emphasis on good baby sleep habits these days and it can be downright terrifying for a new parent. No matter what you do it feels like your child will be ruined forever.

The funny thing is, I haven’t talked to one real-life parent who didn’t break the sleep rules. I’m sure there are sleep commanders out there who strictly follow the guidelines and maybe they do have the friggin “happiest baby on the block”, whatever. My mother assures me that although I was nursed to sleep and shared my parents bed I still learned to sleep on my own before I went to college. So there is hope.

My goal in all of this is for the baby to get sleep and perhaps, if possible, for mom and dad to get to some sleep as well. So however it is that that miracle occurs is fine with me. But please please, if you’re reading this, send out some good sleep vibes to Brady. My husband and I could really, really, REALLY use one night of rest.

Hooray for Greenmarket!

Last summer Greenmarket came to the Upper East Side – actually right to the parking lot at our church. On Saturdays in July through November we can get fresh fruits and veggies, homemade breads, and awesome local seafood just a few blocks away.

I used to go Union Square after work on Fridays, but since I don’t work anymore and carting the kid and all his stuff and a bag of apples and some zucchini and a loaf of bread is pretty difficult on the subway, this is perfect.

A few weeks ago we started buying the seafood there. We’ve always been a little bit seafood-phobic – when it comes to cooking it anyway. It’s so easy to mess up. But since our little Greenmarket is never very crowded, we get to chat with the people at the booths and get cool cooking tips.

On Saturday we got fresh scallops and I made seared scallops with lemon orzo. It was very easy and fairly quick to make and turned out so yummy.

So yay for the Greenmarket for supporting local business, helping the environment, and bringing delicious meals to my table.

Le Bebe Matinee

On Wednesday I went to the Crybaby Matinee at the theater around the corner. It’s a movie offered once a week for moms of kids up to five where they supposedly have stroller valet, a changing table, and keep the lights up. I’ve attempted to go before, but it was always a horrible movie or no one was there or I chickened out. This time, I had never heard of the movie and I was the only one there, but I went anyway. It was too hot out to walk around much and I was tired of my apartment.

So I went in and the theater was dark so I had to ask them to turn the lights back on. They did and Brady and I went in. The movie had already started and I realize that it’s in French and has subtitles! So I sit down and Brady is engrossed in the huge screen and we start to watch. It turns out the movie is based on a book that I read and really enjoyed. It was Tell No One and it was really quite good.

I just want to mention that there was no changing table (actually none in the theater that I could find), and no stroller valet but since I was the only one there I took one of the handicapped spots which worked very nicely. Not sure if they have these things if there is more than one baby present.

While there were some negatives – the $12 (yes $12!) ticket price, the fact that there were subtitles (hello, I have a baby, he’s not letting me watch every moment), the ice-cold temperature of the theater, and the lack of changing table, I was really glad I went. It gave me something to do for a few hours, and it helped me work on the big project of “getting Brady to be still for more than five seconds at a time.” Plus the movie was good and I got to refresh my French. I love being able to tell when the subtitles don’t match the dialogue.

Now if only some other moms would go so I would I have someone to hang out with. That would be nice.