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!

Spring Festivities and a First Birthday.

A year ago at this time I was basking in the unique glow of motherhood, swathed in the womb-like confines of a shared room at NYU Tisch Medical Center, toasting my new son with the endless ice waters the rosy-cheeked nurses kept bringing me. And/or, I was sitting in a paper dress all stunned, like, WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED? After miserable weeks of sort-of-labor, after reaching that too-pregnant psychosis where you start believe the baby is just staying in forever, after passing the due date and sailing on to the next week and infinity beyond, actual labor was so fast the kid was almost born in a taxi cab. And not to wallow in cliche here, but I can’t believe Alton King turns one today.

Ollie.

Likes: Harper, cheese, drinking from a glass, throwing a ball, walking around, slapping things.

Dislikes: clementines.

Skills: Walking, running, falling, getting up, climbing, falling, getting up. Can say Mama, Dada, Hapa, that, and cake.

Goals: Getting bigger than Harper by age 2.

We celebrated by chasing Ollie, as he has somehow come to be known, around various locales and pulling him down off stools, chairs, and tables. First, an adorable Easter egg hunt in the backyard of our new building. This building has just been charming me to death. All the kids! The shoeless playdates! Look at this shit:

Okay, so that was cute. At promptly 1 pm, both of my young combusted, so we went home (all the way upstairs) for naps, and then in the afternoon headed into Prospect Park. Harper had suggested some weeks ago that we go to the carousel by the zoo on Ollie’s first birthday and that she would make sure he didn’t get scared. So we did, and she did. She forgot, however, to make sure that she didn’t get scared. But she played through the panic and then afterward walked away uncertainly, saying, “Maybe that’s for when I’m older,” and “The brave ones get treats.” (?!) Ollie: completely unfazed.

And then some park frolicking, and a long stroll home, and then, of course: cake.

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:

“I’m going to dream of Halloween”

I guess I’ve got a chip on my shoulder when it comes to kid Halloween. Every year I get annoyed that there are scary, inexplicable decorations everywhere, spooking Harper. (The other day at the children’s museum — “Why there’s a hand there, Mama?” “Oh, you know. Just a really fun severed hand floating in some fake formaldehyde as a hilarious joke. Whee!”) She also hates masks and face paint, although she did manage gather up the bravery today at playschool to get her nose painted pink. Then there’s the candy situation. Why would I want strangers to give my kid a bunch of terrible junk food I don’t really want her to eat at all? Why? And let’s not forget the costume situation, which just reminds me of what a non-crafty mama I really am. Maybe it’s the deep-seated costume-wariness of a bespectacled person. Glasses really make costumes impossible. I’m probably the only person in the world or at least Park Slope who wants Sarah Palin to jump into the Republican primary race — just because she’s a good costume for me, people, that’s it.

Still, over the course of the day I admit that my Halloween grinchiness was melted away. Harper was delighted with the morning’s costumes, invented by her: Charlie and Lola.

I was proud of her for this costume idea. First of all, it’s literary and almost entirely unrecognizable by the general public, and thus, my kind of costume. Second of all, it included her brother, which melted my Halloweeny heart. Third of all, it was easily thrown together, consisting of normal and rewearable clothes. I mean, am I an unfun Mom or what.

This costume was perfect for the morning at school — after all, it’s just clothes. And Harper really really liked pretending to be Lola all day. She demanded a lot of pink milk, addressed me as Marv or sometimes Minnie, and got into zany mishaps with an invisible Lotta. Good times!

But a few weeks ago a desire to also be a fairy princess was expressed. What IS a fairy princess? How does she know about them? I don’t know. All I know is, I placed an order with the brilliant Halloween seamstress that is my mother and a few days later a sweet, diaphanous, sparkly fairy dress arrived in the mail. Tiara, wings, and wand were obtained. Alton was squeezed into Harper’s old monkey costume.Costumes #2 were in full effect for evening.

Harper of course refused to wear the fairy princess getup. At trick-or-treating time we made our way out onto the street, Harper dressed as a cranky 2 year old who needed a nap. (A very convincing ensemble, I have to say.) But the magic smoke bubbles at the bakery across the street and hordes of costumed kids changed her mind, as did our accidental trick-or-treating on the way to her friend’s house. “Why he is giving me candy?” Harper kept demanding.

Finally we met up with Malka, her parents, and Adam. As usual, Malka and Harper whipped each other into a frenzy of giddiness, and soon Harper was racing around in her fairy princess costume which was good so I didn’t have to freak out on her about demanding it. The girls loved trick-or-treating, monkey-Alton fell asleep in the carrier, and the grownups got to feel charmed by brownstone Brooklyn in all its neighborhoody glory.
In conclusion… tiara+lollipops=really impressively tangled hair.

The Read Balloon: Peter’s Chair

“Harper, what’s your favorite book right now?”

“Peter!”

“Really? Peter’s Chair, the children’s classic by Ezra Jack Keats, who innovatively used collage and introduced multiculturalism into children’s literature?” *paraphrased

“Yeah.”

“What’s your favorite part?”

“I like when he reaches up.” (On the first page, Peter is building a very awesome block tower.)

“What else?”

“I like when his mama looks out the window. What’s he doing? There’s the picture of him as a bigger baby.”

“Yes. Pretty cool book. It’s about having a new baby in the house. We have a new baby, don’t we?”

No response.

“His new baby Susie is kind of like our Ollie!”

“Read it again. “

And there you have it.

Did everyone else know that Ezra Jack Keats was a Jewish white guy from Brooklyn? I didn't.