Urban Wildlife

A Great Blue Heron spotted on our walk home from school in Prospect Park...



We hadn't walked home one time this year until today! We've become dependent on driving. It seems there is always a reason that makes it more convenient to just drive...rain, giving someone a ride, needing to get home quickly for a playdate or homework. The freedom and ease of driving has made a big difference but we do miss walking too. I really enjoyed walking and talking to all four today.

Lego Store

A quick subway ride and the boys and I were able to participate in the grand opening of the lego store in Rockefellar Center. This day was long anticipated by C. We met one of P's friends there and we all helped to build a giant lego Apple (in honor of being in "The Big Apple") and a green lego citiscape. Charlie spent a birthday gift card and some birthday money on 3 new lego sets and I bought a couple of small things and the boys each got a free t-shirt. The weather was perfect...it wasn't too crowded and it was great to be out with just my guys.

Blue Bell Wood

Before the recent late Spring surprise cold weather...the little girls and I explored the Brooklyn Botanical Garden while the guys were participating in the City Farmer program. The Blue Bell Wood was in its full glory! I hope we will be back in short sleeves again soon.

Trip to the Beach Goes Awry

It was in the high 80s yesterday and after a busy day playing baseball (should be another post) on Saturday, church in the morning, playing in the park in the afternoon...we decided to finish the weekend with a picnic dinner at the beach.








I made pesto pasta chicken salad and Mark made fruit salad and we drove 25 minutes to Jacob Riis national recreation area. We were expecting thunderstorms but the sun was peeking out now and then and the beach was almost empty and beautiful. The kids got wet and sandy despite us begging them not to....we enjoyed our delicious picnic and took a few pics. It was chilly at the beach and we started back to the car at 6:30 or so.









The kids were all running on the pavement and M fell down and started crying. A quick assessment and we realized she was fine and we continued on...for about 1 more second when C fell down on his face and jumped up screaming. Blood was pouring out. We calmed him down and held paper towels to the wound until it stopped bleeding a little. We could then see that a visit to the ER was a definite.


Mark dropped us off at the ER around 7:15 and we waited and waited, watched TV and waited, saw one dr. who got another dr....they decided that the plastic surgeon should be called. 45 minutes later the plastic surgeon showed up...cut off a partof dead skin...stitched up the wound with 14 tiny stitchen and were ready to go at 11 p.m. C was very patient and barely cried after the accident first happened. We've been to the ER for 7x in 9 years of parenting. 3x have been for facial wounds. This one was the worst. The patient is doing better today.

Squeezing It All In

Every year...we have a great time at christmas getting bunches of beautiful gifts (toys, toys and more toys) and then we have to find a place for all of them. More kids, same house, more stuff and the reorganization gets harder and harder every year. We had also been planning a redo of the basement for YEARS.

New Year's weekend...4 days, 3 trips to IKEA, lots of assembly and we have a much more functional, bright, beautiful basement for everyday use and to house all the guests that frequently visit us. We bought a new couch/bed, chair/bed, GREAT BIG bookcase organizer, TV stand and a few other odds and ends.

We had our first guests this weekend...Grandpa Dennis and Grandma Judy and they assured us that the new accomodations were very comfortable.

Basement...before pics


Progress...







Basement After!

Belated Happy 5th Birthday!

Summer in the Country

I admit that this may be going overboard in seasonal wear.

Urban Gardening

One of the good things, in my opinion, about living in the city is that we don't have to spend every weekend doing yard work. I do love having a little yard and I NEED the wide green spaces in the park but I don't enjoy weeding, planting, digging etc.

To make up for our lack of gardening space at home, the boys have been gardening at the Children's Garden at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for 3 years. They really love it and the instructors make it interesting and fun for them. They just finished the Spring gardening class and they were so proud to show me the plots that they each planted. Each class made a salad to share with the parents out of the early crops that they could harvest.

They are excited to garden with Mema this summer too.

Standing Up!

It has been a long time coming but M finally pulled herself up to standing today! It was very exciting for me and her siblings. We clapped and yelled "yay M" and then she sat down and grinned at us and clapped and said "yay" too. Then she got back up, reached into the bathtub and used a little pitcher to pour bathwater all over her clean pajamas. M will be 14 months on May 21st.

So glad it is finally warm.

What a great day it was yesterday. The girls and I were out from 11:30 and we all got home at 6 pm after a picnic lunch, visiting several playgrounds, having a great walk through Brooklyn, picking up the boys and enjoying our first "icee" of the season, and seeing the flowers and playing in the botanical garden.

The boys are loving their gardening class again and did lots of planting yesterday. I am always a little irrationally annoyed...to see my beloved garden crowded again after I've been enjoying it practically empty for the whole winter.

IKEA Brooklyn

We were the last ones in Brooklyn to finally check out the new IKEA. It was fun for the whole family...tasty lunch with a view, "Smaland" for the kids" (It has a BALL PIT!), a million trillion cute home furnishings and a great walk along the water afterward. I am slow blogger. This happened last Sunday.

Nothing Like the First Birthday

The whole first year of baby girl's life has been amazing. She is a darling and a delight.

March 21, 2008.



March 21, 2009

Belated Happy St. Patrick's Day

We went to a little parade in Brooklyn on Sunday and here are some pics.

Student of the Month

I have no idea what type of schoolwork or behavior earns the "Student of the Month" honor but you get a t-shirt and a certificate as your reward. I am very proud of my big second-grader and his acheivement. At first he was shy about sharing his news but after I made a big deal about it...I could tell that he was proud. He also lost a top front tooth!

Latest Checkup

P had a checkup at his oncologist today. A checkup includes a blood count, height and weight check, and an examination. For the first time ever P's blood count was totally normal. It has been "fine" before, given his circumstances, undergoing chemotherapy or taking a break from chemo or just finished with chemo. He finished treatment four months ago and his CBC report had no numbers at all in the "out of range" column. Very exciting! He also had an echocardiogram because in some rare cases there is heart damage in some patients that have one kind of chemotherapy that P had at the beginning of treatment. P's heart was also pronounced normal. Yay for that!

It was on my mind to complain bitterly to the doctor and anyone else I could find about the 20 calls that I had to make between my pediatrician and the pediatric cardiology office over a 3 week span in order to finally make sure that the proper referral was in the right hands so P could have the echocardiogram...but after hearing so much good news...all my anger and indignation melted away and I sailed right out of the office. Sorry...that was a very long sentence!

M was an excellent little traveler as usual and is welcome to attend any and all further medical appointments that P has. K, however, required constant attention from everyone she met all day long. She asked the echocardiogram tech about 5 times if she would get a "prize" and "is that prize ready yet?" and "what could the prize be" and "do you have any prizes for girls?". I'm going to have to find another destination for K when P's next appointment comes along.

I Love NYC

First...my trip to the dentist...but I'll get to the loving New York City part. I hadn't been to the dentist in 18 months and I knew that I needed at least one filling. It is cliche..but...it is hard for me to escape and take care of myself. The plan was for me to go our dentist in lower Manhattan ALONE (yay!)...Mark would meet me there with the girls at the end of my appointment. My appointment went better than I expected but I do have to go back for more fillings.

I was done at 11 a.m. and had 4 hours until I needed to pick up the guys. The girls were tired and I didn't see any reason to go home when I was already in Manhattan on a beautiful day. I thought I might go to H&M to get some merchandise for my little ebay micro-business. I decided to walk from Wall Street up Broadway to midtown. I knew the girls would take a nap on the way.

Wow! I love walking! I feel like I've been locked inside the house for decades. I love seeing all the people of Manhattan...working people rushing to meetings, film crews setting up, tourists everywhere, moms and nannies like me with fancier strollers, young hipsters in irridescent ballgowns.

I saw new stores that I'd never heard of, stores that I'd always heard of but never had a chance to check out (Uniqlo) and old favorites that I hadn't visited in a while. The sun shone and the snow was melting. One church had yellow ribbons tied on their iron fence in honor of hundreds of U.S. service men with name tags for each one. I saw some old-timey cobblestones a couple of times and some famous landmarks that I always enjoy running into...Trinity Church, City Hall, Flatiron Building, Grace Church, Empire State Building.... I think I walked 40 blocks but I'm not sure. It took about an hour and K woke up at 34th street. Anyway...yeah...it is nice to just walk in the city.

Snow Day in NYC

It was the first snow day in New York City in five years and the first one that my kids ever experienced. It was also really cold and windy. I was GLAD when a friend from down the street called and invited C and P to go sledding with her and her kids. I just couldn't picture carrying M in the baby carrier for hours while watching everyone else sled. I COULD easily imagine the 9+ meltdowns that Kate would have for no apparent reason while traipsing around in 8+ inches of snow. I did feel a little bad that I couldn't take the kids out myself. I thought about my own childhood and realized that my mother never came outside and played with us in the snow. We lived in the middle of nowhere (no cars, no shady people and big hills for sledding everywhere) so she just sent us out alone and hoped we entertained ourselves for a LONG time.

It will be great though...when K and M are bigger and we can all go out and play in the snow together.

K and I baked brownies and we had two moms and three neighbor friends over for macaroni and cheese lunch and brownies after the sledding...then they all played and watched a movie while the Moms visited. What a nice day!

I did have to cancel Patrick's blood count and echocardiogram for the second week in a row though. Oh well...we'll get there eventually.

Is winter over yet?

Almost Finally Crawling

Baby M seems very strong and rolled over around 4 months but she is by far the slowest to crawl and she still doesn't really sit up unassisted. She has been rocking on her hands and knees for weeks...if not months and does get around the house by doing a combination of rolling around and pulling herself along on her belly. It is pretty funny to watch. I don't mind her reluctance to go mobile at all! I wish time would slow down so I could enjoy her babyhood a bit more.

I am nervous that after all this procrastinating...she'll just jump up and start walking one of these days. How is it possible that she is almost 11 months?

Windy Wall Street!

I am a junior member of a committee that is applying to bring a charter school to our neighborhood. The proposed school would have a focus on environmental science and would open in 2010. The committee is currently working on a 500 page charter application that is due in mid-June. I am in way over my head and think of myself as support staff. To that end...M and I dropped K off at nursery school and then set off for Manhattan and the NYC Charter Center.

It was so windy in lower Manhattan that I was afraid the stroller would get away from me. Our destination was at 111 Broadway in a building that I have always wanted to go into... right next to Trinity Church. I worked in near there before my current occupation and frequently walked by. The lobby did not disappoint...ornate elevators, old-fashioned lighting...

It was weird to be in an office! I felt out of place. M wasn't as cooperative as I had hoped so I printed and copied as much as I could of two previously approved charter applications as fast as I could. Everyone was very nice and I had asked in advance if I could bring M but I think they were a little relieved when I took my squealing girl back out the door.

Homework Blues

For some reason...it takes C about 17 hours to do his homework. I've tried leaving him to do it himself so he won't be distracted. It doesn't make him work any faster. I usually sit right there with him so that I'll be ready to help...if he needs it. He doesn't need any help though! He needs someone to tell him every 5 seconds to keep working on it...and not to fidget, talk to himself, look at his pencil, look out the window, run around the room, talk to anyone else etc. I took these pics one day when it took C, 1 hour and 45 minutes to do about 30 minutes worth of homework. Sometimes I resort to begging him to just focus and finish. I point out that all his playtime is being wasted but it doesn't seem to help.

I know that I shouldn't compare my sons...but I'm pretty happy that P comes home, sits down and completes his homework before I even realize that he's working on it.