Summer in the City

You guys: it has been so so hot.  All we do is sweat sweat and sweat.  I wear dresses and the sweat drips down my legs.  The boys sweat through their sunscreen, and even after I dab their faces with hankies little beads of moisture appears on their upper lips, like beards.

I wish you could tell from these photos how oppressive the heat is.  It should show up in my photographs, it's so thick.  The other night I had dinner with an author, at Pok Pok Ny, this really hip semi-outdoor Thai restaurant with no air conditioning.  We stood in a long line of Brooklynites to eat dinner at 5:30 in the afternoon.  Have you ever eaten incredibly spicy food in 100% humidity?  It was like a competitive sweat fest.

This month Roan is taking a gardening class at the botanic gardens, every Wednesday and Friday from 9 till noon.  I thought it would be so fun, hanging out with Ilan for 3 hours, wandering around the gardens.  But even at 9AM it's so damn hot, and we just sweat the whole time.  The thing is, the air is so still.  There's no breeze, and it just hangs on you.  Sometimes when I move my arms, the air feels so thick I expect to see streaks.

During this heat wave Grandma and Grandpa Lyons came to visit from Texas, and I think they were quite horrified by the heat.  In Texas, everything is air conditioned.  Here, not so much.  Even when we turn on our wall units, the bathroom is steamy with humidity, walking in there feels like you're entering a sauna.  We can't use the oven, or even the stove top, it's just too much heat.  Everything has to be BBQ'd outside.  

Here are some shots of our heat wave activities.

Reaching for water at the Botanic Gardens

Open hydrant at a block party

Roan learns to ride a pedal bike!

"Pool party" in our yard

Watching koi in the Japanese Garden

Sweating in our yard

Lani plays in a stream at the Gardens

Katie

This is Katie.  She's been our babysitter for 2 and a half years; i.e. Ilan's entire life.  She left us to go to school in Virginia Beach.  We really, really miss her.

Katie seemed to really love and enjoy our kids, which is the primary thing you look for in a babysitter, and she also didn't take much crap from them.  She wasn't afraid to discipline them, and wasn't afraid to occasionally tell Roan that she was really bored of trains and could they please please please talk about something else?  She has lots of common sense, which is something I no longer take for granted, after having a babysitter without any.  And she was always on time.  In fact, she was usually early.

Katie was almost too good.  There was a time when she was cutting Roan's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into car shapes.  Roan told me about this, and asked me to cut his sandwich like Katie does, and I never got it right.  "Mommy, you didn't make the spoiler like Katie makes the spoiler," he would say, or, "where are Lightning's eyes, Mommy?" And let me tell you, when you are rushing around trying to feed your kids, and pretty hungry yourself, the last thing you want to hear from your little pipsqueak of a son is, "mommy, this doesn't actually look like the Lightning McQueen sandwich that Katie made so I'm not going to eat it."

I took the top photo on her last day with us, at the end of June.  This one on the bottom is from May, in our backyard on a rainy day.

Little Boy

June Cali Trip

We were in California for a few days at the end of June, visiting Popi and Grandma Mac and hanging out with Aunty Grub, Zach, and Baby Kate.  We even got in a beach trip with Julia, Audrey and Aunt Cindy.  It was a blast and I have tons of great stories to tell, but I always come home from California exhausted, and getting back on Eastern Standard Time is a real bitch.  Here's a quick summary:

-Popi and Grandma Mac took the boys to Adventure City where, despite Roan and Zach living in entirely different states, they are on a first name basis with the train driver Mike.

-Grandma Mac bought Roan a tiny motorized train called The Northern Express, which, once assembled, fits on the tray table of an airplane.  Roan adores it, and won't let Ilan touch it.  What he doesn't know is that as soon as he leaves for camp in the morning, Ilan grabs it and laughs an evil genius laugh.

-Grub and I borrowed a Suburban so we could take all four kids to the beach in one car, which we did two days in a row.  We were lucky to have two perfect beach days.

-Grub and I went shopping at Loehmanns, without any children, where Grub found me the perfect bathing suit, originally $120, on sale for just $26. Grub is a tireless bargain shopper.  She even bought a skirt and a pair of shorts that she later sold to our mom.

-My dad, the three boys and I rode Amtrak to the beach.

-We dressed the children in matching shirts, provided by my mom, and had a picnic in the park where I proceeded to lose the car keys to the Suburban we borrowed.  We all had to walk home.  Roan was tired so he sat on my shoulders.  Lani insisted on walking himself.  It was a terrible combination of extremely slow walking while carrying an extremely heavy object (my 40+ pound child).

-I went jogging with Mo and Grub several times.  I also took some walks.  People in California are so healthy, and tan!  I decided to go on a diet.  I'm going to start at the end of the month.  I asked Grub for some encouragement.  I think I said: "tell me something good about my body - where do I look particularly strong?"  She looked at me and was quiet for a long time.  "Your quads seem kind of strong" she finally said.

-Zach idolizes Roan, and Roan knows it.  He said several times: "I know Zach loves me."  Zach tolerates Ilan, just barely.

Thanks to Mom, Dad, and Erica for such a fun time!

California Train Ride