Found Time

Jay went on a fishing trip last weekend, to celebrate Grandpa Lyons' 70th birthday, so I had the boys all to myself.  The first notable thing was that Lani dropped his much loved piggy bank on his foot.  It's a large ceramic piggy bank, heavy with coins, and it shattered and left a deep gouge in the top of his big toe.  His foot is otherwise fine, and he runs around all day until I take off his shoe to change the dressing, at which point he experiences the trauma of the injury all over again, refuses to put any weight on his foot, or walks with an exaggerated limp.  As soon as I put a sock on him he forgets all about it and walks normally.

Then Lani fell off our backyard step and scraped the skin off his nose.  This makes it pretty near impossible to wipe his nose, which is constantly running.  So he's got a face full of snot and scabs.  His appearance got even worse after I cut his hair.  His bangs were getting in his eyes so I grabbed the kitchen scissors and snipped them straight across before he could protest.  Now he looks like a friar.  A friar that got in a bar fight.

Ro saw me cutting Lani's bangs and asked for a hair cut too.  So both my kids looks like friars.

Lani also picked up a strange habit over the weekend - he won't leave the house unless he is wearing one winter mitten.  It has to be one of the mittens that he wore as a baby, so there are no thumb slots.  It's like a straight jacket for your hand, which really pisses Lani off anytime he tries to grab stuff.  Still, he refuses to take it off.

Ro has a new nickname for Lani: disgusting.  Which he pronounces as "dissusting."  He used to reserve it for meal times, when Lani smeared food everywhere, or to generally remark that "babies are dissusting."  But now it's more like a term of endearment, he'll say, "come on, dissusting," when he wants Lani to follow him or come and play.

Saturday morning we drove to Kids n Action, an indoor hasidic amusement park, for a birthday party.  It's on McDonald, so we drove under the elevated train tracks, with the F train rumbling above us.  Kids n Action is huge, and it was all shuttered, which should have been my first clue, but we were early and I figured by the time we found parking and walked there it would be open.  It was only a few blocks to walk but it took forever - Lani insisted on walking himself, so Roan held his hand to try and speed him up, tugging his arm and saying, "hurry up dissusting."  Every store we passed was shuttered and the streets were deserted.  I realized - we were in Borough Park on Shabbos.  Nothing was open.  I had my dates confused; there couldn't be a birthday party in this neighborhood on a Saturday.

I don't why, but I get this feeling of freedom and joy at times like these, when I've made plans that fall through.  It's like I've just found a few spare hours in my pocket that I hadn't counted on.  Saturday was beautiful, a crisp and sunny spring day, we were all dressed and well fed with brushed teeth, and we had just been given the gift of nothing to do.  The whole day opened up in front of us.

So we climbed the Avenue I station and went joy riding on the F train. The sun streamed through the windows and Lani stood on the bench and Ro sat on his knees, their heads together, watching the tracks and  the roofs of houses rush by.  The whole thing felt extra sweet because I hadn't had to plan it.  All the effort and hassle of getting us out the door was assigned to something else, and this train ride was something extra that fell into our laps.

We did make it to the birthday party on Sunday, and it was lots of fun.  But our sunlit ride on the F train stands out as my favorite part of the weekend.

Nice Track

I don't want to brag, but I think I've gotten pretty good at taking pictures of train tracks.  I've certainly had a lot of practice.  These first three are photos from the Highline, an abandoned elevated rail line in Manhattan that was converted into a park / public space.  We used to live right above the Highline.  We spent two years dealing with all the construction, and moved out 2 months before it opened.

These next three are tracks I shot on my trip to London last month.  I took the train to Cambridge to visit an author, and these tracks are from the Cambridge train station.  Below that are old rail ties with Scottish lighthouses carved in the middle of them, on display at Jesus College. And last is a shot of raised track from the Underground.

The Best Age

Wave Hill

Jay was away for Spring Break, at the Bologna Book Fair, and Ro's preschool was closed for 10 days for Passover, so my Dad came out to assist me and spend time with the boys.  Every night my Dad and I made plans for the following day, what my Dad would do with the kids while I was at work.  I wrote incredibly detailed directions, because it's not easy to drive in New York or find a place to park.  I  knew Roan wanted to show Popi Grand Central, and my directions on how to take the subway there and come home again filled an entire page, front and back.  Somehow, they still got lost, and took 3 or 4 more trains than was really necessary, but they still made it home in time for dinner.

My dad took Roan to the Brooklyn Central Library, where they spent a few hours reading books about trains.  They drove around Bush Terminal, an old freight yard in our neighborhood that is just now being put back into service, and watched some work diesels loading a brand new Long Island Railroad train onto the rails.  They went to Bounce U, a playroom full of bouncy houses and insanely huge slides.  They went to the Children's Museum.

Then my mom came to town, which was very good because for all my father's adventures, he never was all that interested in the banalities of childcare, like figuring out when to give Ilan a bottle.  On Friday, we took the subway to Grand Central, and rode the Metro North up to Wave Hill, a rambling garden that overlooks the New Jersey Palisades.  We were a bit early in the year to enjoy the garden - it will be gorgeous in another month, but it wasn't really about the destination.  We just needed a reason to ride the Metro North.

March

It is still cold, but we are starting to venture outside.

Lani Lou Funny Guy

At the table, Lani puts the back of his hand over his mouth, wiggles his fingers, and makes wah wah wah noises.  He puts his foot on the table, on and off, on and off.  Roan eggs him on.  Roan laughs and says, "Lani Lou's a funny guy!"

When they're riding bikes, Lani rides with no hands.  Roan (who I've never seen take his hands off the handle bars) can't believe it.  "Put your hands back on!" he says.  And then, "what a funny guy."

When I'm sitting on the floor, Lani stands behind me and hits my shoulders, then hides when I turn around.  He will trash any laundry pile, fling clothes through the air, laughing.  Roan hangs underwear on his ear and laughs like a maniac.  I'll admit, that one is pretty funny.

In the car, Lani Lou makes this gurgle / shriek sound.  He laughs at himself and says, "aga," which is how he says again.  And then he gurgle / shrieks again.  He cracks himself up every time.

Roan tells him to blow a kiss, and he blows a kiss.  Roan tells him to go in circles, and he spins in circles until he falls down.  He is such a ham.

The Polar SS

It is unfortunate that Roan, my Jewish son, is obsessed with The Polar Express, a story about a train that takes children to the North Pole to meet Santa.

It is even more unfortunate that when he talks about it at his Jewish preschool, which is pretty much all the time, he pronounces it so that it sounds like "The Polar SS."  I have had several parents ask me what the Polar SS is all about, because their children are talking about it, and they heard about it from Roan.  Last week alone five Jewish women asked me to explain the Polar SS.

"It's the not the SS," I say, "that's just how Roan says the word "express.""  And the moms or teachers are relieved.

"It's this great story of a train ride," I explain, "about a bunch of kids who take this crazy midnight express train to the North Pole."  The moms and teachers seem interested. "And then they, um, you know, meet Santa Claus," I say.  The moms and teachers look concerned all over again.