Francesca Turns 10- Girls Day Out

On September 14, 2011, my amazing niece, Francesca, turned 10. Yes, that's right, double digits people. This was truly a momentous occasion, so I decided to take her out to celebrate the decent into the big 1-0 by taking her to one of my favorite dessert establishments here in Brooklyn, The Chocolate Room.

I was very fortunate that my fantastic friend Adriana offered to watch my kids so I could take Francesca out. Adriana, you rock! I'm with my kids 99 % of the time, so it was great to have an opportunity to take Francesca out just the two of us.

When we walked through the doors of The Chocolate Room, naturally, we gravitated toward the giant cases of individual chocolates. However, we were very surprised to find this:

We did not eat the Francesca chocolates, but rather, after inspecting the overwhelming menus,

we decided upon two brownie sundaes.

That's a decaf coffee pictured above. I'm trying to lay low on the caffeine.

Anyway, the waiter even gave Francesca a candle in celebration of her first decade on earth.

After we ate the giant brownie sundaes, we were thoroughly hyped up on sugar and I could not stop laughing. I kept saying "Wait! This is really important! I have to tell you something!" And then I would forget what I was going to say, needless to say, the brownie clearly impacted my ability to think clearly and form coherent sentences. But I digress.

We left The Chocolate Room, and Francesca wanted to go to a bookstore. So we drove aimlessly looking for one. But first, I really had to pee. So we found a cafe in Cobble Hill that kindly let us use their facilities. It also had the smallest water glasses we'd ever seen.

And the entrance to the bathroom had soundproofing material and christmas lights!

We finally found a bookstore, and Francesca wanted to look in the Pets section for books on dogs. We were at the bookstore for about five minutes when all of sudden Adriana called me. They were back! We had to rush home to get the kids.

Samara went down for a nap, but Frankie, Ari and I went to Lulu's, even though Ari was clearly very tired.

His level of exhaustion did not stop him from swinging on our front gate.

Francesca carried Ari to Lulus. Ari was excited because Wil gave him a few dollars to buy a toy with. Francesca got this cute little stamp!

After our all of our adventures, it was time to head home. Ari and I said goodbye to Frankie at her front door.

Well...it was mainly me saying goodbye. Ari was too busy chasing the balloon that he got at Lulu's around.

Happy 10th Birthday Francesca! Love, Aunt Sarah!

This One's For All You Pregnant Ladies Out There

Wil found my old pregnancy journal, circa 2008,in the closet today. I was flipping through it and I was amused by this page.

Since it's unlikely that you'll be able to decipher my handwriting, I'll decode it for you:

"Everyone keeps obsessing over the caffeine thing. It's really annoying. I barely drink coffee, and now if I'm seen eating a chocolate chip cookie, they want to alert the media! Quantity-wise, there is significantly less caffeine in chocolate than coffee! What else? Oh, I keep hearing "take it easy!" What does that even mean?" What do people think, I'm going to take it hard? Start mountain climbing or hunting?"

I crack myself up.

But this does bring to light something that I want to discuss. When I was pregnant, and after I had Ari, I received some of the most nonsensical "advice" from co-workers and (for the most part) strangers.

When Ari was three months old, I was nursing him and enjoying a cup of coffee with my cheesecake at Junior's (the best cheesecake in Brooklyn I might add) and this lady, who was a complete stranger, walked by and shouted "Don't drink any brown beverages! They will upset the baby!" I smiled and nodded politely, but wanted to yell obscenities at her:

So, I just want to say, if you're pregnant, or you have a newborn, and someone says some stupid shit to you that makes no sense, feel free to react accordingly.

Now it's your turn. Please tell me the most ridiculous advice you've received as a expectant or new mother.

Monkey See Monkey Do

Yesterday, Samara and I were having a conversation...oh, and Ari didn't fall down...

Dayne

Meet Dayne:

It all started this morning when Ari began carrying this orange thing (pictured above, but without the hat on at the time) around and saying:

"This is my baby. Nobody can take him away from me. I love you baby!"

Then he began nurturing the orange thing like it was a real baby. He was holding it, putting it to sleep and took it in the living room because his baby was "hot."

"My baby is hot, mommy. He wants to sit neat the air conditioner."

After his baby cooled down, he decided to give him a ride in the stroller, but not before accessorizing him appropriately, which is what you see above. In addition to a hat Ari's baby also had on...well let me just show you:

I asked Ari what his baby's name was. He's taken to naming everything after a grasshopper on Max & Ruby whose name is "Hoppy." So of course he said "Hoppy!"

"Why don't you pick another name for him besides Hoppy?" I asked him.

There was a palpable silence.

"What's his name?" I asked, anxiously awaiting the answer. Ari is not extensively familiar with nomenclature, but I figured he would come up with something. After a few moments he said quietly:

"Dayne."

"Dayne?" I clarified.

"YEAH!" He exclaimed.

"How do you spell it? D-A-N-E or D-A-Y-N-E?"

"D-A-Y-N-E!"

And so that is how Dayne came to be Dayne.

In fact, he is so attached to Dayne, that ran out from quiet time to get him.

"Wait! I want to sleep with my baby!" He exclaimed.

Here they are together:

Tell me, who is your child's inanimate object pal at the moment?

Here's My Son's Card

I was on the playground the other day on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, my old neighborhood, and I met this really cool mom. We got to talking while Ari was running amuck and her toddler son was strapped into his stroller. The mom in question had gorgeous long wavy hair that looked too perfect for words.
"I love your hair!" I marveled. "I wish I had hair like that."
"Oh don't be fooled," she cautioned me "My hair is just like yours. I just had it cut and blown out yesterday. That's why it looks like this." I laughed. She told me where she got her hair done, this place in Chelsea, and we compared bad curly hair cut stories.
Things were going great on this "mom date," I thought, until she and her child were ready to get going.
"Hey, we should exchange emails or something," I offered "maybe we could meet up on the playground again sometime?"
"That would be great," she said smiling. Then she looked down for a moment and hesitated.
"Um, my husband made these for me the other day, actually...it's the first time I'm handing one out." she said offering me a small white card the size of a fortune from a fortune cookie.
I looked at it...it was her son's full name and his emaill address.
So basically, in order to get in touch with this woman, I have to email her 16 month old. I really didn't know what to say. I thanked her and she went on her way with her stack of business cards at the ready.
So what do you think? Should I email this toddler or what?

The Day We ALMOST Didn't Make it To The American Museum of Natural History

Yesterday was Sunday, so all I wanted to do was lay on the couch, but I knew that if I did that, at the end of the day I would feel like a total sloth. Instead of being lazy, I packed up the kinder in the Fadermobile, and told them that we were headed to see the dinosaurs at The American Museum of Natural History.

By the time we got out of the house, it was around 1:30pm. We drove my dad into the city, because he just got a part in a play, so he had to sign a contract on 42nd Street. After that, the kids took a nap in the car, and by the time we got to the Upper West Side, they were awake and starving. So we went to Ceasar's Pizza, on 84th and Amsterdam Avenue, to eat.

Ari had pizza and ice cream, and Samara and I shared rice & beans and meat balls!

We had a late lunch, and by the time we finished eating it was 5:00pm. The museum closes daily at 5:45pm. I told Ari we had to rush, otherwise we would miss the dinosaurs! He immediately jumped up from his seat, got Samara ready in the stroller, and off we went!

We were going at a great pace, Ari was so excited to see the dinosaurs that he was actually running down the street. Until he got tired...and wanted to "rest"...on someone's stoop.

I reminded him that we were in a rush, and if we didn't hurry were going to miss the dinosaurs! Well...that didn't work. He still kept lollygagging around, until I pointed to a couple of kids who were running up the block.

"Can you catch those kids?" I asked him. "Go run and get 'em!"

This was a challenge he was glad to take on. He bolted up the block to catch the children in question. Since he was so fast, I don't have pictures to document his success.

We got to the Musuem of Natural History at 5:20pm, which meant we only had 25 minutes to spend there.

But...the good news was...the last hour the museum is open is...FREE! WHOOO HOOO! The museum is a suggested donation institution in general, but this was a nice surprise.

Here are the highlights of what we saw in 25 minutes:

We did what we could in our mini-visit! At least we got to see the dinosaurs!

I Am So Creative

When I was packing the diaper bag to leave today, I realized that I had no Ziploc bags to store Cherrios in. But then, I remembered I had breast milk storage bags! So I did this:


Talk about thinking outside the box...or the bag! Am I awesome or what?