The saying is if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. I disagree. What the saying should be is, If you can make it in New York with two kids, you can make it anywhere.
Let me tell you, there are few things that feel as uncool as driving down the FDR in… a minivan. The minivan was critical for the trip–when Pie freaked out, there was enough room for Adam to sit between the two kids and keep them happy–but boy did I feel bridge-and-tunnel driving that thing in the city.
Did we survive the trip? Barely. It was alternately very, very fun and very, very bad. Adam and I actually got a night out–the Nana and the Peter stayed in our hotel room with the wee ones–and I got to see high school folks I haven’t seen in decades. I got to drink alcoholic drinks, which happen to be my favorite kind of drinks. I had conversations with adults and I felt like I was someone other than a mother for once. (The odd part, though, was going out in New York in daylight. In my youth, I lived in the East Village, and it never would have occurred to me that daylight hours were for anything other than going to the office or catching up on my sleep. No self-respecting New Yorker would consider venturing out in daylight hours. They melt or something.)
But then there were the other moments. Like when Doodles, who requested to nap in Sweetie Pie’s crib, decided he wasn’t going to nap. He was going to play. And no matter how overtired he was (very) or how angry I was getting (very, very), he was not going to sleep (not at all). The highlight came when I turned to Adam and said, “This is no fun. Let’s go back to Boston now,” and Doodles latched on to this. He stood up in the crib, big fat tears streaming down his face, screaming, “I want to go back to Boston. I WANT TO GO BACK TO BOSTON NOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!” He did finally–two hours later–conk out in the bed once I lay next to him and closed my own eyes. Something about my pretending to sleep always puts Doodles to sleep.
Sweetie Pie’s sleep was not a success, but luckily that was mostly the Nana and the Peter’s problem as I was out enjoying said alcoholic drinks.
Will we go back? Eventually. But there better be a hell of a lot of those alcoholic drinks waiting for me.
