New York, New York -- Part One

At the end of March we flew across the country to celebrate Minnesota Grandma's 70th birthday with the Brooklyn Kafka-McGuire-Lobel clan.  It was a pretty fantastic trip.  There was a lot of cousin and sibling bonding, the plane rides were smooth and uneventful, we stayed in a great apartment on the LES near the Williamsburg Bridge, and everyone had a good time.

We flew into NYC on a Wednesday night.  The S-R family that was so generous to loan us their apartment for the week had fedexed us their house keys.  We made it to their street a little after midnight. 

A kind soul held the door open for us so we didn't need to use the keys to get in the building, and we went up to the fourth floor.  We were surprised to see a HUGE mezuzah on the door as well as Hebrew lettering.  I was pretty sure the S-R family was at least part Jewish, but I didn't think they were mezuzah the size of my head, Jewish.

After about 10 minutes of standing in the hallway, desperately trying to figure out how to unlock the door, Steve started asking if we had the right place.  We double checked, it was the right floor, and the right apartment number.  We asked an older woman who was standing in the hallway, waiting for her teenage grandson to haul his luggage into her apartment, if she could help us.  She was hesitant.  We asked her if she knew if the S-R family lived in that apartment.  She didn't know.  We tried the keys again.  It was nearing 1am.  You can imagine the anxiety we were feeling, standing in the hallway of an unknown apartment building in the middle of the night, in Manhattan, beginning to wonder what we would do next if we truly couldn't get into the apartment.

To make an excruciatingly embarrassing story short, turns out, this was the right address, but the wrong building.  A young, sleepily disheveled, woman came to the door and we apologized profusely.  She said she was the one who was sorry because she was about to call 911 on us.  We hauled our exhausted children and luggage back down the elevator and down the block to building "G" (who knew the letter at the end of the address mattered?)  Back up to the fourth floor.  And magically the keys worked!  You know, since we had the right apartment this time.  (We found out we were not the only people to make this mistake, since later that week UPS left a huge box at the apt door of the place we were staying that was meant for the people whose apartment we tried to break into in the middle of the night.  It made me wonder if it was kismet and we needed to hand deliver the box to them because we were meant to meet.  I didn't bring it over.  I still wonder...)

The next day, we met Grandma, Grandpa, and cousins Talia and Daniel at the MOMA.  Samuel recognized the painting "Starry Night" right away on Talia's and Daniel's membership cards.  Which was pretty cool to see that his art education is coming right along.  We did some fun kid activities and then headed to see some Van Gogh.  Next time I think we'll skip the kid area and head straight to the art.  We ran out of steam but the kids clearly were enjoying the art.

The next day we headed to a carousel in Brooklyn on the East River.  We got to chill with the sibs, grandparents and cousins, play in the boulders, and not take a ferry.  Still have the tickets though.

 Samuel and Shira climb on the rocks.

 As most 5 and 5/6ths year olds are wont to do, Samuel enjoyed trying to throw ever larger rocks into the river.

 

 Samuel is the "bad" older cousin who shows his younger ones about flouting the rules and throwing rocks.

Looks like Daniel is about to throw something at Samuel here, hmmm....

 Ben and Samuel with the Brooklyn (or is it the Manhattan?) Bridge in the background.  Hanging at a playground in between the bridges on a gorgeous sunny day with all the Kafka-McGuire-Lobel relatives can't get much better.

 Picnicking

 We tried to take a ferry ride, but managed to miss it, although we were standing in line.  A story not worth elaborating on.  So we proceeded to the next playground over, which was overrun with an enormous contingent of Hassids.  It was Passover, and I'm sure all of these families had time off from school and work, but it was totally bizarre that they were all hanging out at the Brooklyn seaport.

 

I was fascinated by all of the matching outfits.  These were families that had 5 or 6 or 7 or more kids, and all of the girls were in matching outfits and all of the boys were in matching outfits.  I imagine it must make it easier to locate your brood, but man, it has to cost a bunch of money - you can't do hand me downs if everyone has to be matching.  Lucky for me, they were all in very dark clothing, so Shira's bright pink jacket could be seen anywhere.

 

Judy and Kelly hosted a wonderful Shabbat dinner for the whole family at their house that night.  Before dinner, we headed to meet up with Peter at their apartment.  Ben and Samuel ran ahead with Ben pointing out all of his favorite spots on his way home - the ice cream store, the pet store, the wine store...  And Samuel and Ben bonded over Star Wars.  Samuel knew he had a kindred spirit when he saw Ben's light up Luke Skywalker shoes.

 

The ever photogenic sibs, before Shabbat dinner. 

 Smile Steve, smile.  And does Peter look angry, or thoughtful?

 Yay, everyone is smiling!

 The Cousins

Yum dinner.

 And great company.

 And super silly kids

And Auntie Judy's Passover Frog Cupcakes.  There were pronounced Delicious!

 We got to ride the same subway as the Kafka boys on the way home.

From Shira's countenance you might guess that it was way past bedtime.  And you would be right.  Although, it kind of depends what time zone you were thinking of.  We were kind of hoping to stay on California time, just to give us a later bedtime, but we weren't very successful.

 You might also guess from Shira's exhausted look that there was a lot of sleeping on subways on this trip.  And you would be right again.

 

More to come.

Almost 6 years of nursing

My first time signing on to the blog for a long time.  I know I haven't blogged for a long time, but was surprised to find that it has been over 9 months.  A lot has happened; Samuel's first day of kindergarten; Shira's first day at preschool.  Many trips, some deaths, Samuel has learned to read and add and subtract.  The Giants won the World Series and Samuel became an even bigger sports fan than before.  At some point, I hope, I will try to catch up on some of the exciting stuff that I haven't posted here.

But today's post is to document, before I forget, the beginning of the end of almost 6 years of nursing.  Samuel stopped nursing around this time 2 years ago.  Shira is currently in process.  When I told her we were only going to nurse twice a day, several months ago, at bedtime and in the morning, Shira was not pleased with the change.  There was a number of times that she insisted on nursing more often and I said "no".  There were also times when I saw her need (or was too worn down by the crying) that I said "yes'. 

But last week I told Shira that we were only going to nurse once a day, and she completely took it in stride.  She has told me a few times, recently, that she is going to stop nursing soon, because the "nurses" don't have much milk in them anymore.  She has forgotten to nurse multiple days in a row.  When she does nurse, it is not for long. 

She nursed this morning, and I wanted to make sure to write it down, because I have a feeling at some point in the next month or two, I am going to look back and say, "When was the last time we nursed?"  And I will have no idea when that was.  Today may be it, or one day next week, or two weeks from now, but we are clearly on the path to the end.

Nursing continuously for nearly six years has been more than enough for me, but it feels very weird, that something I have done for so long is coming to an end.  The end feels so anticlimactic.  Nursing was so significant for so long, and now, not so much.  No marker.  No event.  No grand change.  Just the end.

Time to move onto the next part.

Winter in Minnesota

 

 After several years of trying, we finally managed to get a real, snowy Minnesota winter.

 Samuel, Shira and I had the opportunity to skate on a lake for the first time.

 Notice Samuel wearing a sweatshirt and no coat.  That boy clearly got some Midwestern genes.

 Although, you might also notice that it is a Giants sweatshirt.

 

 

 

 

 A treat for these Californians to go outside at the but crack of dawn to scrape the snow off the car after an early morning snow storm.

 

 

 What made this trip even more delightful was to return to the sunny 70s of home and a garden that grew by leaps and bounds while we were away.

Our Italian neighbors

For three months we have had the great pleasure of living across the street from this wonderful family.  Samuel was thrilled to have a boy his age living so close, and Samuel, Shira and Davide have been playing together constantly for the past few months.

 Between rock climbing, Happy Hollow, going to see the elephant seals, joining us at soccer practice, celebrating birthdays and holidays together, we feel like they are another part of the family.

This picture is of our last dinner together before they had to return to Italy.  We hope they will have the opportunity to come back here again, and they have been trying to convince us to visit them in Italy - not that I ever need an excuse for that.

 

Samuel keeps looking out the front window waiting to see if there are lights in their house to see if they changed their minds and didn't leave after all.  It's breaking my heart a little bit.

AYSO soccer

 

 Steve volunteered to coach Samuel's first soccer team.

 

 

We met Steve at the end of his soccer coach training so that we could meet Samuel's team mates. 

 Samuel was super excited to get his jersey.  A little disappointed it wasn't blue, but he got over it quickly.

 

 Here Samuel is getting all suited up for his first game

 

 Shira loves to play soccer too.  Probably more than Samuel.  Not sure how we're going to convince her to wait another year after this one before she can be on a team.

 

 The coach consults his game plan.  Well, actually he's looking at the notebook to make sure all the families turned in their forms.

 

 

 

 Coaching 5 year olds is all about crowd control.

 As the season went on, Steve discovered the kids enjoyed pretend games while they were practicing.  I think the favorite was pretending to be cars while you dribbled your ball around the field.  Complete with calls of Red light, Yellow Light, Green light, and everyone's favorite CRASH!, when all the kids would fall down on the ground.

 

 

 After some consultation the first day, the team decided to name themselves the "Green Ninjas".  Samuel suggested the name.  Most of the team instantly fell in love with it.  Steve asked if anyone else had suggestions, at which point, there was a chorus of, "How about Red Ninjas?  Or Yellow Ninjas?  What about White Ninjas?"  So Ninja it was, and since the jerseys were green...  Which ended up being a good call, since there was a team with red jerseys - I'll give you one guess what their name was.  And they weren't the only _______ (insert color here) Ninjas.

 

 

 

 

 Samuel's first game.  He played against a number of his classmates.

 AYSO does there best to arrange rosters and game schedule by which school you attend, which was pretty neat.  It meant that Samuel knew a bunch of the kids on other teams that we played.  And since he had just stared kindergarten, it meant that he met a bunch of kids through soccer and got to know them better at school.

 

 

Over time, Steve discovered that kindergarteners have very low attention spans.  Our team was much more successful when Steve kept reminding players that they were playing a soccer game, and that they should look for the ball. 

 

 

 

 

 There were 8 players on each team, and only 4 played at a time.  AYSO is an "everyone plays" league, which meant that in four 5 minute quarters, each child was supposed to play two quarters.  Of course, this also meant, that each child sat out two quarters.  Some of the kids seemed to enjoy sitting on the sidelines and listening to me read the books I brought with me to entertain Shira, more than they enjoyed the game. 

 There were a couple of kids who had to be cajoled onto the field.  I promised I would read more when they came back.

 

 Samuel, however, really enjoyed playing, and would happily play extra quarters if we were down a player.

 

 

 I love the Good Game hand slap at the end.

 Samuel's team lost their first game.  Steve and I were curious to see how he was going to deal with losing, when the time came.  He took it in stride.  We were both pleasantly surprised.  His team lost more games than they won, this season, but he always wanted to play, and though he did keep score*, he wasn't too bummed when they lost.  Yay for team sports!

*AYSO does not keep even an "unofficial" score at this level.  This does not stop the kids, however.