Hot Time in Town

There are any number of ways to beat the heat in NYC - fire hydrants, water parks, sprinklers in city parks even. For some reason, with our recent heat wave, we didn't really take advantage of any of them. We have, however, been having fun nonetheless. On Monday, before I realized we were in the middle of a heat wave, I decided to go to the local park with Penny. Mom was running errands and it's only 10-15 blocks to the local middle school with a playground, so I figured no problem walking. Penny and I set out with our adventure hats (which had been gathering quite a bit of dust since we got back from Grenada), snacks and plenty of water at, oh, 10:30am. It felt like that slog to church on a Grenada Sunday. It was brutal. While I recovered in the shade of the playset, Penny burnt herself on the slide and ran around for a little in the blistering sun before joining me in the shade. Then we had the brainstorm of enjoying the little trike that someone had left. Penny had a great time driving it around. It was her first real opportunity steering because her little toy car at home doesn't appreciably turn when you turn the wheel. You can see the confusion when she approaches the curb in the video - just starts turning from side to side instead of choosing a direction and going with it. We did a few bumps into the wall rather than me correcting the problem all the time - sometimes you have to learn the hard way. From the giggling, though, I don't think it was a very hard way.

NYC is also home to a remarkable array of beaches, so why not beat the heat there, you ask? Well... The sewage treatment plant in Harlem caught fire on Tuesday and has been spewing raw sewage into the local rivers for close to a week. The beaches clear down to Staten Island are closed until, well... I can't say that I'll be putting my toes into the water any time soon. The Jersey Shore almost sounded appealing until we started adding up the price tags and how early we'd have to get there in order to get there. So, our friends Julie and Liam proposed a trip to Governor's Island, located in NY Harbor and a mere two free ferry rides away. It has no potable water, but lots of fun walks, free bike rentals, and even some air conditioned art galleries to enjoy. Penny even found a beach/giant sand box (with no contact with the water) and friends with toys. So it all worked out nicely. Meeting up with Julie and Liam, though, brought home the idea that maybe we need to arrange a nice Flats reunion - it seems that almost all of us are expecting and due at about the same time, so we might have a hard time traveling if we wait too much longer to get together.

Passenger Pics

Today was a whirlwind adventure, to be sure. We started off the day with a visit to the doctor for our last official look at the passenger before his big arrival. Now, we may get another look if I get panicky or something, but this is the last SCHEDULED look...the one that is especially exciting because you get a real good preview of the new family member. Penny tagged along because Mom wasn't feeling up to watching her this morning.

Penny had a great time sitting next to me on the recliner, watching the baby on the screen. Looking at his legs, saying "Brain!" and "He's a scary monster" and other such fun things. She REALLY wanted to take my blood pressure with the cuff on the wall since she knows how to work one (come on, there's a doctor in the house!) and she knows the one at the office would work better than the toy one at home. She was pretty cute and remarkably patient, considering the appointment went from 8:30am until about 11am. I seem to have a penchant for choosing doctors with a long wait/visit time.

Because she'd been so good and it's relatively close, we went to the beach afterward. It's a NYC beach, so we had to dodge the tampons and other random trash, but she really enjoyed looking at shells, checking out the birds and even the teeny mussels I pointed out on the pilings. She was scared to let the water touch her at first, but eventually warmed up to it and even started playing as if the waves were sucking her in as they rolled back out. Thankfully, that led to nothing more than splashing a little above the knee, because even I'm a little wary of the harbor water around here. We didn't spend much time there because it was brutally hot and she started getting hungry for lunch. We had a little KFC picnic on a blanket in a shady nearby neighborhood, then headed off to the eye doctor so Mommy could get some contacts.

There were two reasons I needed to get contacts. One, I've got awesome eye benefits for once in my life. Two, Penny's been doing a lot of diving at me and really brutal head hugs that drive my glasses frames into some tender spots on my head. Now we were in prime nap time, so the eye doctor was more of a struggle, but she continued to generally not be horrible, so we went to the "Once Upon a Child" next door and picked up some pretty cool used toys (kitchen for only $10!). Having missed nap time, we toughed out the rest of the evening at home.

So, we're having a really tough time recently with Penny. She is getting considerably more willful and sobbing a lot whenever she doesn't get her way. It's pretty darned obnoxious. Then when we hug to make up, she's darned violent, taking dives at my lap and squeezing my head with all her might. I've been losing it with her on a regular basis it seems, yelling at the top of my voice or shoving her away after she throws herself at me for the umpteenth time. This, of course, just leads to more crying, which then requires a makeup hug that goes awry, ad infinitum.

In talking with a friend of mine, she mentioned that she had been a real bear with her existing kid during her most recent pregnancy and now that the new baby is starting to sleep on a regular basis, she is only slowly regaining her patience. She said she wouldn't want to have more kids because it would be unfair to the existing ones for her to be short with them for a full two years. I mentioned this to Dan and it seemed to provide him a great deal of relief to hear me expressing a similar sentiment about my behavior with Penny. I know I've been short with her a lot and I definitely regret a lot of it. I'll admit I am in a bad state of mind at times. Some of it, though, I'd like to think is more driven by the phase she's going through being a real trial of patience. Hopefully we'll figure out some coping/discipline strategies that will allow us to address some of the challenges and make our household a little less loud and crazy. In the meantime, keep us in your prayers as we figure out the new phase.

July 4th Fun

Apparently, the fourth of July was so much fun I didn't have a chance to take any pictures! We were invited to spend the fourth with the extended family of a cousin's girlfriend. It reminded me a lot of the holidays I enjoyed growing up, so was quite nice.

Dan's experience of New Jersey has largely been limited to the suburbs of NYC- a bed of oil refineries and swampland to absorb the pollution from said refineries. There's the occasional foray to his brother's house, which is a pretty wealthy suburb kind of neighborhood. The rest he's seen from the comfort of his car on the NJ Turnpike. He always thought there must be some secret section hiding out there for their license plates to claim NJ is" the Garden State."

This weekend, we got to discover that well-kept secret. We headed out to Monroeville, a teeny town with the nearest big highway sign being Camden, NJ. This is not a resounding endorsement for those of you not familiar with east coast geography/politics. How many cities have had to hold emergency elections because the sitting mayor was indicted on drug trafficing and other charges? We suspended disbelief and forged onward, though, and soon found ourselves among peach orchards and wooded loveliness. Our little GPS even successfully directed us along the little dirt road to the house.

We were graciously greeted and over the subsequent hours thoroughly stuffed with fresh local food of all kinds. We enjoyed picking fresh raspberries for a fruit pizza. I probably fed Penny at least enough for one of those little grocery store containers, but she just kept asking for more and the were pretty delicious. Corn was freshly shucked and prepared, there were an amazing array of peach and blueberry pies with homemade crusts...just awesome.

Penny thoroughly enjoyed the variety of activities and wildlife. While sitting on the porch, we spied a little preying mantis and watched him for a bit. He let Penny get quite close. Then he hunkered down and made a great leap right onto her face. Obviously, she was pretty startled and stood up with her eyes wide. I gently pulled the little guy off her lips and nose and asked,
"Whoa! Was that scary, Penny?"
"No." (Admittedly a little shaky.)
"Were you surprised?"
"Yes."
"He must have wanted to give you a kiss. Was that pretty silly?"
She took her time about it, but the shock only took maybe a minute to wear off. She did do a little giggling about how silly the bug was. Then we were back to watching the little guy. She may have done most of her watching from the opposite side of the table, but isn't wisdom the better part of valor anyway? Our inexperienced little bug friend appeared to have met his end before dinner was over- I saw him spirited away by a yellow jacket (ye standard picnic wasp). Last I saw, the mantis lay motionless in the grass as the wasp nibbled at his ear.

The big attraction for the afternoon was the pool. I haven't been able to convince Penny to enter the pool since we left Grenada. Sure, she went to the neighbor's last week, but she wanted out as soon as she got in, then played precariously on the ladder for 30 minutes or so. Oh, yesterday was different! I put on her little cloth swimmy diaper and surf shirt (I do splurge when it comes to pool wear). I put on my swim suit, purchased the week we first suspected the passenger's presence. I slathered on the sunblock and in we went. Penny had a blast and a half. She was kicking around, playing with her dad (though only willing to swim with me), giggling like there was no tomorrow. With chattering teeth and thoroughly blue lips, she insisted she wasn't ready to leave the pool. It was only the promiof returning once she warmed up that allowed me to extract her from the wet wonderful pool.

We went inside and got dressed and she was just laying down for a nap on a teenager's bed that reminded me an awful lot of my sister's, when we had a diaper failure. I acted as fast as I could, but some fluid did make it onto the mattress. Eek! Stranger's house and we just wet the bed of the teenager who had been coaxed into letting us borrow the room. On the plus side, Penny had refused to sleep with ANY of the native bedding. Didn't save the mattress, all the same. I was able to tell our hostess, who took it in stride, saying they have grandkids stay on a regular basis, so it's not like it hasn't happened before. Go for folks who know how to make you feel welcome, even when you feel like you haven't been the best guest.

We loaded up on some more desserts before we finally headed home at 7pm or so. Penny set some kind of record for spped of falling asleep in the car. All in all a great day.

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