Farewell, New York!
Walt and I both realized that spending time in Manhattan with a child is not like spending time in Manhattan (or at least not like the Manhattan everyone thinks about). Generally when I'm in New York, I get in some shopping and try to make a stop at both ends of the shopping spectrum -- Takashimaya and Century 21 -- walk through Central Park and 5th Avenue, get in a couple of tourist activies (like a trip to the Met) and eat, eat and eat. This time it was like we were in the alternate New York universe, the one where you spend a lot of time at playgrounds but don't go to museums or to the Statue of Liberty because you either have to plan around a nap or your traveling companion doesn't have the attention span necessary to go on a half-day long tourist activity. I was so worried about her breaking something in Takashimaya that we didn't go there, either.
Walt's last hope for an adult activity was a lunch at Molyvos, which was right around the corner from our hotel. It wasn't fated to be, though, since we started off with a trip to the Loeb Boathouse to rent bicycles (after, of course, the requisite playground stop) -- and it turned out that we went up to the west side and the boathouse was on the east side. Ugh. By the time we got across the park on foot, we had to get lunch for Devon and try to get her down for a nap and never had time to make it to the boathouse. The next time we visit we'll have to do a better job of planning in some adult activities so there's a better mix to suit Devon as well as mom and dad.
Even after all of this, Devon never did take a nap on Friday afternoon, so we finally took the subway to Brooklyn. This was quite an event, since we were carrying Devon plus all of our bags (and I had picked up a couple of books and other items at the conference). Luckily we traveled right before rush hour, so at least we were able to get seats and have a place on the subway floor for the bags. Walt was starting to feel like a sherpa, though, with all of the bag carrying that he was doing.
Henry was happy to see Devon when we returned on Friday and the feeling was mutual. During our time in Manhattan, Devon would (sometimes randomly, it appeared) pipe up with "Henny's house!" or other similar Henry-inspired phrases.
She had had such a good time there, and it was so much fun to have another child in the house, that she got quite attached. Devon and I were actually on our way to the playground on Friday afternoon, shortly after we arrived at Cass and Jim's (the cleaning lady let us in), when we ran into Henry and his babysitter Theresa (plus Billy, Tom and Mary's baby from upstairs) -- so we immediately turned around and headed back to Henry's house. Henry actually tried to convince Theresa to let him go to the playground with us, but I didn't want to risk another playground incident (like earlier in the week) where I ran roughshod over all of Henry's structure and kept Henry and Devon out at the playground so late that Jim had to come and get us!
On Saturday morning we took our last trip to the 3rd Street playground in Prospect Park and also managed to take in the last few minutes of Henry's soccer game. Devon has been talking about "Henny's soccer game" for quite awhile now; we weren't there long, but apparently it made a big impression on her. It was more like a soccer practice, and Cass mentioned to me later that they don't actually have any "games" -- it's really just fun drills for the kids, which sounded like a good way to structure soccer for 4 year olds.
We had brunch with Mayra before we left for the airport, which necessitated a car from Brooklyn to Harlem (originally we planned to take the subway, but Walt reasonably thought the expense of a car would be worth not having to schlep all of our luggage across Brooklyn and pretty much the entire length of Manhattan on the train). Mayra's terrace was lovely and expansive -- and it was big enough for a large table, plants AND a barbecue, which is really saying something. She served us a carnivore's delight from her grill, and Devon had great fun "watering her plants" (I have this in quotes, since the watering consisted primarily of splashing in a bucket of water and getting soaked).
As an aside, I have to say that I have been very pleasantly surprised by Delta, which is an airline that I never take anywhere. We managed to get another spare seat for Devon on the way back, which made the flight really quite bearable. She fell asleep towards the end of it, which was even more delightful. Her sleep is now rather screwed up because of the time change, but we're hoping that in a few days we'll be back on our normal schedule.
My dad has been asking for some photos our trip, and I finally got some of the photos off of our camera -- I'll try to suck some more off later this week and update previous postings with photos. We did get a great one of Cass, Jim and Henry on the steps of their brownstone before we left town.
Walt's last hope for an adult activity was a lunch at Molyvos, which was right around the corner from our hotel. It wasn't fated to be, though, since we started off with a trip to the Loeb Boathouse to rent bicycles (after, of course, the requisite playground stop) -- and it turned out that we went up to the west side and the boathouse was on the east side. Ugh. By the time we got across the park on foot, we had to get lunch for Devon and try to get her down for a nap and never had time to make it to the boathouse. The next time we visit we'll have to do a better job of planning in some adult activities so there's a better mix to suit Devon as well as mom and dad.
Even after all of this, Devon never did take a nap on Friday afternoon, so we finally took the subway to Brooklyn. This was quite an event, since we were carrying Devon plus all of our bags (and I had picked up a couple of books and other items at the conference). Luckily we traveled right before rush hour, so at least we were able to get seats and have a place on the subway floor for the bags. Walt was starting to feel like a sherpa, though, with all of the bag carrying that he was doing.
Henry was happy to see Devon when we returned on Friday and the feeling was mutual. During our time in Manhattan, Devon would (sometimes randomly, it appeared) pipe up with "Henny's house!" or other similar Henry-inspired phrases.
She had had such a good time there, and it was so much fun to have another child in the house, that she got quite attached. Devon and I were actually on our way to the playground on Friday afternoon, shortly after we arrived at Cass and Jim's (the cleaning lady let us in), when we ran into Henry and his babysitter Theresa (plus Billy, Tom and Mary's baby from upstairs) -- so we immediately turned around and headed back to Henry's house. Henry actually tried to convince Theresa to let him go to the playground with us, but I didn't want to risk another playground incident (like earlier in the week) where I ran roughshod over all of Henry's structure and kept Henry and Devon out at the playground so late that Jim had to come and get us!On Saturday morning we took our last trip to the 3rd Street playground in Prospect Park and also managed to take in the last few minutes of Henry's soccer game. Devon has been talking about "Henny's soccer game" for quite awhile now; we weren't there long, but apparently it made a big impression on her. It was more like a soccer practice, and Cass mentioned to me later that they don't actually have any "games" -- it's really just fun drills for the kids, which sounded like a good way to structure soccer for 4 year olds.
We had brunch with Mayra before we left for the airport, which necessitated a car from Brooklyn to Harlem (originally we planned to take the subway, but Walt reasonably thought the expense of a car would be worth not having to schlep all of our luggage across Brooklyn and pretty much the entire length of Manhattan on the train). Mayra's terrace was lovely and expansive -- and it was big enough for a large table, plants AND a barbecue, which is really saying something. She served us a carnivore's delight from her grill, and Devon had great fun "watering her plants" (I have this in quotes, since the watering consisted primarily of splashing in a bucket of water and getting soaked).
As an aside, I have to say that I have been very pleasantly surprised by Delta, which is an airline that I never take anywhere. We managed to get another spare seat for Devon on the way back, which made the flight really quite bearable. She fell asleep towards the end of it, which was even more delightful. Her sleep is now rather screwed up because of the time change, but we're hoping that in a few days we'll be back on our normal schedule.
My dad has been asking for some photos our trip, and I finally got some of the photos off of our camera -- I'll try to suck some more off later this week and update previous postings with photos. We did get a great one of Cass, Jim and Henry on the steps of their brownstone before we left town.
posted by Devon Szalva at
9:11 PM
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