The Boy/Girl Bedroom

I keep meaning to post some beautifully set-dressed and well-photographed evidence of our new home. “Look at that sun-washed room with the casual vase of peonies just so, and that teacup which I hardly notice but which lends the whole image a subliminal coziness!” You would exclaim. But I don’t have time for any of this. I’m revising the novel in every spare instant and chasing Ollie down off the ceiling in every unspare instant. Anyway, so for now some iPhone pics of the kiddo room. I just think it’s a really cute little room, with its wacky, mostly accidental mix of patterns and the well-hung (snicker snicker) artwork arranged by professional art handler, Uncle Doug. Harper loves it, though she doesn’t understand why they can’t have bunk beds yet. (Because I’m mean, pretty much.) And the other day she got all teary, missing the silver stars in her tiny old closet of a room. Recreating those stars is actually on my to-do list. Number 947. Getting there.

I think we probably still count as a tiny kids’ room, though to us it feels huge. To have room to play! In the bedroom! How novel! They even have a closet, half of which is dedicated to clothes and books. We are living the life over here, people. Don’t even get me started on the elevator. Or the parking garage. Park Whope? Anyway. So behold: the room: as it actually is every day. (Imagine the sunlight, flowers, and achingly lovely photography. And tidiness, imagine some tidiness too.)

PS I wrote this post on my phone while kind of supervising Harper taking a bath. I’m such a good mom!

The 2-for-1-Special Springtime Birthday

One thing you have to admit for our family planning, we are really going to save money on birthday parties. Man, have we beat the system!

Last year I was convinced Alton was going to be born on Harper’s birthday, and so we had her tiny tea party a little early, but he had the good manners/laziness to be born weeks later. That was fun! I’m kidding, it was miserable! Anyway. So their birthdays ended up being two weeks apart, in different months even so they each get their own little sector of spring, but close enough that for the next few years anyway we can force them let them share a birthday party.

I decided a spring theme made sense, which meant some fake cherry blossom sprigs, some springy bunting, and two cake-foods. For the Harper side of things, dainty pink cupcakes with gum paste cherry blossoms that I lovingly crafted by hand. Come on, my kids eat nuggets every night. I ordered those suckers online. And for the Alton side of things, a chocolate cake that looked like mud, which is to say, slathered in chocolate pudding and crumbled cookies and gummy worms and slugs. For some reason, some of the guests found this to be off-putting. There was pin-the-tail-on-the-robin, but more importantly, tons of balloons. And that was it. We played records. We gave the grownups mimosas and bagels. Alton wandered around like a puppy, climbing into people’s laps and stealing their food. Harper occasionally reminded her guests not to take home her presents. Murray got shy at the last minute and stayed home with all his cats in Paris. It was really so much fun, and we felt so thankful to all the friends and new neighbors who came by, and very house-warmed and heart-warmed.

Here are some photos Adam took. And you can also get a peek at our new place, which we are semi-settled into. So without further ado, here is why is my novel revisions are not into my editor yet:

This is Kensington. Or Windsor Terrace. Or Something.

Our corner, as it was in the 1940s. Thanks, Brooklyn Collection!

Well! So! We did it! We moved! It went kind of like this:

March, 2011: “Hey, we’re having another baby! But wait, we live in a 1.5 bedroom. Okay, a 1 bedroom. Oh, who cares.”

August, 2011: “HOLY SHIT WE HAVE TO MOVE.”

November, 2011: “Wait, what? After some months of getting super depressed about how super depressing Brooklyn real estate is, we found a non-depressing apartment? Weird! Let’s buy it!”

February, 2012: “Wait, what? We bought an apartment? HOLY SHIT NOW WE HAVE TO MOVE.”

From thence followed very shoddy packing, some chaotic days of moving, including panic attacks about whether or not our voluminous books-n-records collections were going to make our movers commit seppuku, some very shoddy unpacking, still not finished. Oh, I forgot the spirit-crushing anxieties over retiling the kitchen and bathroom and repainting and changing light fixtures and doorknobs and whatnot, which caused me to guiltily remember every time I’d mentally answered someone’s “Man, my renovations are killing me” with a resounding (albeit silent) “SHUT YOUR PRIVILEGED LITTLE TALK-HOLE!” (Turns out that stuff actually really is stressful. Who knew!)

So anyway, we made it, we’re here, in our new little corner of Brooklyn. If you’re from Brooklyn, we are on the border between Kensington and Windsor Terrace. If you’re not, we are still kinda near Park Slope, on a different corner of the park. Or, as our Manhattan-bound real estate lawyer put it, “Kinda near the ocean?” Exactly. Actually, you know, all of New York City is an…oh, never mind.

In EB White’s great essay Here is New York, he writes:”A woman friend of mine moved recently from one apartment to another, a distance of three blocks. When she turned up, the day after the move, at the same grocer’s that she had patronized for years, the proprietor was in ecstasy–almost in tears–at seeing her. “I was afraid,” he said, “now that you’ve moved away I wouldn’t be seeing you anymore.” To him away was three blocks, or about seven hundred and fifty feet.”

This is precisely so. We’ve been moaning about how weird it would be to leave the place we lived for 7 years, our beloved best-ever neighborhood, and then sniffling and saying things like, “Well, I guess if we really miss the bakery/bodega/block we could always…walk over one day. It would take like 15 minutes though.”

But I have to say, so far we really love it. First of all, the space. We have our own bedroom! Adam and I, that is. The kids have their own bedroom! Shared, that is. (If you’re from Brooklyn: I know, isn’t that exciting? A bedroom! With a window and a closet and a door! If you’re from anywhere else in the country excepting possibly San Francisco: Yes, the kids share a room, get over it.) We have  multiple closets and multiple doors! The kitchen has these storagey things called “cabinuts” or something! It’s all quite thrilling. And the building is full of friendly kids and neighbors and dogs and such. Harper’s favorite thing ever is pushing the elevator buttons. My favorite thing ever is pushing my SUV of a double stroller into the elevator. People, this is the life.

I’m already feeling protective of Kensington, though. I was just about to write about how I love my new coffee shop/office, our new playground, our new library branch, our new playspace, and then I was about to write something about how none of these places are as ridiculously crowded all the time as their shinier Park Slope counterparts (we’ve never waited in line for a swing at the playground here, if you can believe it), but then I thought, Waaaaiiiit- If I tell everyone how great it is here than everyone else will move here and then where will I be? In line for a goddamned swing is where.

Then I remembered that, thank goodness, I hardly have that kind of influence. Or readership. And also, we’ve only been here a few weeks. There’s plenty of time to realize we’ve made a TERRIBLE MISTAKE AND RUINED OUR LIVES AND THE LIVES OF OUR INNOCENT CHILDREN.

Nah. Come on, Steeplechase Coffee has red velvet twinkies! What could go wrong?

Here We Are

A Moving Tribute

To live gracefully in a small space, you must either be a minimalist or exquisitely organized. Unfortunately, we are neither. Fortunately, we are moving to a larger apartment this week. Unfortunately, this means we have to move. Fortunately, we have two small children who love cardboard boxes and are happy to pack. Unfortunately, this is how they pack:

With any luck, by this time next week we will be all settled in. Hard to imagine, but there’s a chance.

The Read Balloon: A Glorious Day

I’m officially behind on everything: this blog, every blog, to-do lists, returning phone calls, social interactions, personal hygiene. And this is in part because of a very wonderful, thrilling new stress: we are moving! Yes, after looking on and off for two years or something like that we have found an apartment and then we bought it and now we have to do something about getting ourselves in there. Hold on, you say. That’s nice, but isn’t this a Read Balloon post about books somehow? Stay with me here, yes, I’m getting to it.

So the place we are moving into is a big ole 1950′s co-op building with 55 units and some exciting features: elevator, laundry, and tons of kids. We’ve already been to a birthday party there — there are 10 kids under the age of 3 — and were regaled with tales of intra-building playdates on cold winter days, chase games in the corridors, laundry room toddler jamborees, and holiday parades in the lobby. We’re so excited!! It is going to be our favorite and our best!

All of this is relevant because the book Harper and I have been obsessed with lately is Amy Schwartz‘s excellent A Glorious Day. It’s one of those sweetly uneventful books (a friend who was roped into reading it 9 times in a row to Harper was like, “What is up with that book anyway?”) that really appeals to small children. Harper loves to read and reread details like what kids have for breakfast, or how they prepare for bed — after all, these are the main events of her life too.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The book is basically an ode to Brooklyn family life, and this (along with the wonderful illustrations) is why I’m okay with reading it 7,000 times a day. 10 kids (am I counting right?) live in a little 4-unit apartment building, and the book is concerned with all these kids — the baby, the little kids, the big kids — spend their day. They play in their small apartments, they meet up in the stairwells and on the stoop, they stroll down the block to the playground. They flow in and out of each others’ lives organically — hearing each other in the bath at bathtime, helping each other locate lost pets, seeing one another at the store on on the street. With all the aspects of city life that seems so unwholesome for growing children, I love a good reminder of what’s so wonderful about it — the built-in community, the sights and sounds, the constant stream of interesting stimuli.

Plus, Schwartz’s illustrations are so lovable. We’ve already packed the scanner or I would share my favorite page, which features the bedtime arrangements of all the kids in the buildings and all the various shared bedrooms (another newfound interest of mine) — the bunkbeds next to the crib, the twin beds lined up Madeline-style. I’m so glad we stumbled upon this book, which came to us at just the right time, as all good books do.

Now let’s hope I can somehow return it to the library on time. This move has me psychotically scattered, but that’s another post. A post I will never have time to write.

A Glorious Day by Amy Schwartz. Warning: This subversive text features children jumping on sofas and eating potato chips for breakfast. Just so you're prepared.

In Love With Inconvenience: The New York City Parent

 

Brooklyn, Land of the Schleppers

One thing I love about living in the city is having interesting, sophisticated, worldly conversations with the smart, creative people one meets here. To wit, one of my recent favorites, concerning the question, “How do you get in the door?” I bet moms in the suburbs don’t have stimulating conversations like this one.

In the strange case that you were curious, here’s my version: If we are in the double stroller I kick Harper out, make her walk up the front stairs, then pull the stroller up the front stairs into the vestibule where I park, unload, put Ollie in the carrier, then lug everything up to our third floor apartment while shouting at Harper, “Go! Go! Don’t pick up the neighbors’ shoes! Just walk! No, don’t sit down and talk to Pretend-Murray! Walk! Up!” Or, alternately, if we are in the single, umbrella stroller, then I kick Harper out, make her walk up the stairs, unload whatever groceries we’ve acquired or cubbies that have been stowed in the basket, take these up into the vestibule, then fold the stroller and insert it into the stroller-pile in the hallway before lugging everything up while shouting, “Walk, Harper! No, Pretend-Murray doesn’t need a time-out! Go up the stairs! Up! Up!”

My friends and I like to discuss our other fox-chicken-chicken feed type conundrums – how to get groceries, walk dogs, take the subway, etc – in excruciating detail, grateful for every inkling that someone else has it worse. “Oh, you have to store your stroller in the basement? Drag!” It’s very enriching. And it’s not just the everyday household stuff either; it’s schooling (“How many pre-Ks is Punky applying to?”); it’s housing (“I hope the co-op board approves us so we can move into our $800,000 studio!”) – we just like everything to be about 12 steps more complicated than it is anywhere else.

But as I was transporting an IKEA haul up our rickety stairs the other day, having performed extremely complicated car-moving maneuvers (coordinating, as I do, all driving outings with times when the car has to be moved for alternate side parking/street cleaning anyway), it occurred to me that I probably secretly like all this ridiculousness. After all, it is a kind of a puzzle, a riddle to feverishly occupy my mind while my body performs numbingly boring tasks like grocery shopping. It becomes a kind of a game to multi-task as many tasks as possible, to transform an ordinary errand into a complicated series of strategic moves. Everyday life, become chess.

That said, I wouldn’t mind a slightly less crafty opponent, sometimes.

Malka’s Miniature Room

The other day Harper declared Malka to be her best, best friend. This was after some quality time spent engaged in Harper’s favorite friend-activity, namely, holding hands and running and falling down. Just like true best friends, they spend a lot of time being sort of awful to each other. But lately an amazing thing has happened. On a playdate Malka’s mother (the accomplished poet and YA author Carley Moore, who also makes a killer smoothie) and I realized we hadn’t heard from the girls in a while. After a moment of cold dread, we found them happily playing together in Malka’s sweet little room. After two and a half years of parallel play interrupted now and then by knock-down-drag-out brawls, this is a very thrilling developmental milestone. Malka is an older woman, having already turned 3, and I think her maturity might be rubbing off on not-quite-two-and-a-half Harper.

I believe the sweetness of Malka’s room has something to do with their congenial play. There is just something about this room (and the whole apartment) that feels like home, that reminds me of what I loved about being a child and my own room growing up– a relaxed, homey warmth.

Here’s what Carley has to say about the 9×12 room and how it came together: “My mom, Judy Haller of Jamestown, New York, made both of the quilts.  The purple one she made for Malka when she was born and it’s made from fabrics that we’re designed to look like childrens’ fabrics from the 1940s.  I love some of those patterns–the tiny kittens and the hearts, very retro.”

” The second one (the red and blue one), my mom made last year for Malka at Christmas.  I love the reds and blues and that there is a different panel for every month.  I come from a long-line of quilt makers–most of the women in my family quilt (my mom, my aunts, my grandma) so it’s special to have these in Malka’s room.  Plus, they are so one-of-a-kind–the quilter’s vision is always so interesting to me, kind of like a writer’s voice.”

“Shells–Malka loves shells and jewelry.  We try to arrange those on her dresser, and she rearranges often.  She sometimes tries to sleep with her shells she loves them so much.” [Ed. note: Also My Little Pony! Hello, wave of nostalgia! YES!]

“The new bookcase.  It’s a piece of crap from Ikea–a Billy to be exact.  I don’t want to knock the Billy though.  We have many of them in our house full of books.  I always say that I won’t buy another, but they are so cheap and they fit a lot of stuff.  Now Malka has some bins for tiny things like cars, paper dolls, and beads, and all of her books and puzzles fit in one place.  Yay!”

“Matt’s father made the Malka collage when she was born.  He’s a painter and collage maker.”

I think it only fair to note that this room was spic-and-span when we arrived, but the girls immediately pulled down one of the toy bins and got to work making music and playing. I’m telling you, this room WORKS!

You know what else I think helps make this home so cozy and warm? The excellent design choice of cats draped luxuriously here and there.

Also, Malka has a kick-ass doll house that really reminds me of the Fisher Price one I used to have.

So there you have it. And now, let us hold hands and run in the fields together. Metaphorically, I mean, of course.

Best Bath Toys Ever.

We have a rubber duckie, but it's not quite this adorable. (image from BumblebeeLetterpress on etsy)

I have wasted tens of dollars on cute, squeezy little bath toys that soon glower with moldy guts and have to be disposed of in the dead of the night, only to be asked about weeks later. “Where’s Gail the Snail? I need her!” For a while I was tried real hard to pretend a set of white plastic measuring cups was plenty fun for bath time. I just couldn’t crack the bath toy conundrum. I mean, really, what the hell? I feel bad enough that these rubber duckies are going to be floating in the ocean until the end times. They might as well provide more than 3 months of entertainment before floating out to confuse Tahitian dolphins, right?

So I thought others might appreciate this: I finally found the perfect bath toys.

Alex boats in the tub. They are not paying me for this product placement. But if they want to I do accept payment in boats.

These Alex boats are solid plastic, so there’s no insides for water to get trapped and yuckify in. They float, obviously, so that’s fun. They also connect and stack. More fun. They are pleasing, gender-neutral colors, which is good because you know Alton’s inheriting them. They are plain enough to be transformed into anything. “Look, Harper, it’s like the tugboats we saw at the Red Hook Harbor!” “What? Mama, no, they are fairy boats.”

Right?

Also, we are very into personality-infused washcloths. The real stars of the show are and have been Froggie and Ducky (Adam does a great Froggie that is somewhere between Elvis and Kenny Powers, in a family-friendly way of course), but I find them to be too thick and heavy, so that they never quite dry out all the way, which is sort of unfortunate, by which I mean totally disgusting. We recently welcomed Little Twig’s very adorable (and quick-drying!) Ladybug and Bumble Bee into our musty collection, and they spend a lot of time gobbling bath-bubble-pollen and aphids. I find them to be superior products, but they will have to work hard to supplant the charismatic F&D power-couple.

And oh man, wanna know a secret? Harper’s newest obsession is “colorful baths.” So gross! And yet, the kid loves a nice purple soak at the end of a long day of sipping organic milk and wearing $17 all-natural California Baby BS Sunscreen.  I’d definitely recommend this completely bizarre product, Color Bath Dropz (with a z), for reluctant bathers with non-squeamish parents.

Who knew this would become such a pressing topic to me? And yet, I actually spend time thinking about it. And writing about it. As Froggie would say, “That’s crazy, man.”

 

 

Kid Art Projects: Clean, Messy, Messiest

I have to admit that the quality and complexity of our household art project ambitions have really taken a nosedive since the new guy moved in. Poor Harper! But I mean, it’s hard to craft a play-dough baby while holding an actual baby  (though not, as I’ve learned, impossible). Still and yet, there are still rainy days, and beautiful days when Mama cannot emotionally handle the stress of the playground, and thus: art projects. A clean one, for the very lightly-functional days, a messy one, for when baby’s studiously drooling on the exersaucer, and a REALLY messy one, for when baby’s solidly napping and daddy’s home just in case.

First, the clean one: painting with water on a chalk board. This is a great little trick I stole from, where else, The Artful Parent. Love her! It’s a super-easy, zero-mess project a 2 year-old can do “all by herself on her own,” as is Harper’s way. All (well, most) the satisfaction of painting, but if this “paint” spills, the floor actually gets cleaner.

Next up: play-dough. I also got this play-dough recipe from The Artful Parent. I should note that mine was a bit messier than necessary. Turns out if you don’t include as much salt as the recipe calls for it actually makes a difference! So it was a little mushier and softer than it should have been, which actually made for a very enjoyable sensory experience but also more little schmutzy bits everywhere. We made lots of different colors. It was Harper’s innovation to run little trains through them. Bonus points if you wear only a bathing suit that you call a “play suit.”

The smushing-play-dough-on-the-chair move is a good one too. I call it, “Why not to have fancy furniture.”

Finally, the mother of all messy art projects: finger paints. That’s right, I went there. Harper saw an art project in her beloved High Five magazine that involved cutting vegetables and making stamps to use with finger paint, so we tried it (finally, a use for that wilting orange pepper!). After some initial hesitation – “I’m a little worried the paint will fall down,” she said, and the process-oriented creativity-advocate in me said, “That’s ok! Get Messy!” as the mother-who-was-about-to-have-finger-paint-all-over-the-kitchen said, “Huh. Wait what?” – she was OVERJOYED. Again Harper whipped out the little Ikea trains and I realized she’d gotten the idea from the wonderful Julie Brunner, aka Miss Julie, who teaches the wonderful Get Messy art class at our local Y that we go to when it’s not so crowded we can’t get in (!). Miss Julie is so smart!

Anyway, the vegetable stamps turned out not to be as exciting as the glorious goopy paint itself, which of course was not nearly as exciting as washing hands/playing in the sink. Here the orange pepper (and Harper’s shoes) became buckets, and the red paint became medicine for some hypochondriac plastic polar bears. Good times.