the pieces of my life

I’d like to start tonight with a scene from Stop N Shop this afternoon. My three-year-old daughter is sitting in the cart. We’re shopping.

Pie: Mommy! Can I get more yogurt?
Me: Sure. Would you like grown-up yogurt or kid yogurt?
Pie: Um, grown-up yogurt.
Me: Okay, would you like strawberry or blueberry or peach?
Pie: I want the brown yogurt.
Me [I pick up the chocolate yogurt and check out the 37 grams of sugar]: No, sweetie, not the brown yogurt.
Pie: I WANT THE BROWN YOGURT!
Me [trying to distract]: How about a kid yogurt? I see Dora and Diego over there.
Pie’s eyes widen.
Pie: Hannah Montana! I want Hannah Montana yogurt! Please, Mommy, can I have Hannah Montana yogurt?

So, yes, my daughter is the proud owner of six (wait, she ate one already so make that five) Hannah Montana yogurts. I still don’t know how she knows Hannah Montana.

All of that, by the way, is completely irrelevant to this evening’s post. I had intended to write more about the Miami trip, but as the skies are clouding up and the air has that unmistakable smell of snow storm (what is that smell anyway? How is it you really can smell a storm coming in?), Miami seems years and years ago and I can only vaguely conjure up the peace of daily ice creams, on-call babysitters, sunshine on the boat, and the camaraderie of old friends.

Instead I am faced with a new year, but the same old me. Every year I make resolutions, and last year, I failed miserably on most, but made progress on a few. Not that I’d tell you all the resolutions, but I can name a few…

• More kid time: This one is going fairly well. I try to make time each day with each kid to spend one-on-one with. It’s harder with the school schedule–I definitely get more one-on-one time with Pie, but I’ve been working on it with Doodles, trying to read more with him, have him read to me, work on his writing. But I definitely get more time reading Eloise, playing Candyland Castle, or baking hallah with Pie. I need to make more of an effort on this.
• Get to and stay at 133 lbs: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! ‘Nuff said.
• Go greener: This was my most successful resolution. I kept bags in my car and cut our bag usage down by probably about 75%. I was disappointed that our remodel wouldn’t allow for solar panels (we had the house evaluated and were told we don’t get enough sun for solar), but I did convert both our house and the apartment to wind energy. Slowly converting our light bulbs over. Buying energy efficient appliances for the “new” house. Trying to teach the kids about conserving (“No, Pie, you don’t need a new sheet of paper–just use the back of this!” Which works about as well as you’d think it would). I freecycled an incredibly amount of stuff when we cleaned out the house–I was shocked at some of the stuff people wanted: half used tubes of joint compound, the paint samples we had from when we painted our house years ago, Adam’s old economic textbooks, car window tinting, a bag filled with odds and ends of paper. The only thing I couldn’t get rid of was a box of Barney VHS tapes.
• Close e-mail and the Web more: Um, this was the year of Facebook and Twitter. So obviously, a big fat X here.
• Run a four-hour marathon: Hey, I’m happy enough with 4:13:36.

This year, I’m keeping the same resolutions here and adding a few more. Again, many aren’t for public consumption, but a few additions this year are:

• Read 26 books this year: I know 52 is the logical number here, but hey, that is so not going to happen.
• Take advantage of the teachable moments: Too many times I let the great opportunities with the kids pass by, because we’re in the car, I’m cooking dinner, or because I’ve just been bombarded with questions for the previous twelve hours.
• Set a writing schedule: Because I did promise all of you I’d complete the first draft of my novel.

Is that all my resolutions? No. Not even all my public ones. But once again, I can hear the Pie from the other room, so I’m going to tend to my daughter. I’m still adding to the resolutions list, so any that anyone wants to pass on, feel free!

Here we are, sitting at Miami International Airport, waiting for our 9:45 p.m. flight that has so far been delayed to 10:15. The kids are exhausted. In an attempt to keep them awake, I made the smart and rational decision to pump them full of sugar in hopes of keeping them awake until we board the plane, because Pie already fell asleep once on the way to the airport and then again when sitting on Adam’s lap at the gate. I went in search of cash, but the ATM was out of money, I tried to buy a trashy magazine, but there were no People magazines in English, and I’m really not excited about going from mid 70s weather to sub-freezing temps. Call me crazy like that. Of course, once we get to Logan, we still need to get a shuttle to our off-site parking, drive home, and somehow transfer the kids upstairs to bed.

Our trips to Miami have a certain rhythm to them, a checklist of activities to be ticked off. Trip to Jungle Island and/or the Seaquarium? Check. Ice cream at the Frieze? Check, check, check. Stone crabs? Check. Spa day at the Standard? Check. New Year’s eve at my cousins’? Check. New Year’s day ride on my cousin’s boat? Check. Runs on the beach? Check. Pool time, alone time (as the kids stay with the Nana), lunch at Van Dyke, breakfast at Front Porch, cafe con leche, cafe con leche, and just to be safe, another cafe con leche. Check.

This trip was no exception. T Rex and Pad were in town (from California) as usual and they picked up with Doodles and Pie as if it had been last week that they’d seen each other, and not last year. There were a few tussles between Doodles and T Rex–Doodles has this annoying HBS habit of stating–with ABSOLUTE certainty–“facts” that are completely wrong, which upset T Rex to no end. But it all worked out well, and this year, Teener Tuna’s daughter, Billie (remind me why I call her that?), was old enough to peak Pie’s interest. Billie, however, had no interest in my daughter, but that didn’t stop Pie from chasing her, saying, “Billie! Do you want to play baby? Do you want to run? Do you want to dance?” Billie barely had the time to answer the girl.

I guess I’ll have to finish this post later, as my daughter is moaning that she wants to go to sleep (so much good the M&Ms; did) and she wants to sleep on me. So I’m off in that other parental role–mattress–and I’ll be writing you again from Boston… I hope.

It’s been a fun, crazy week, with time in Doodles’ classroom, Adam’s office party, which–surprisingly–was really fun, a Hanukkah singalong at Pie’s school (preschool mosh pit! That girl loves to dance!), a night of cooking class, playdates, and all sorts of holiday prep goodness, including lots of baking, crafting (and I’ve become addicted to craft blogs lately–oh the ideas I have for next year!), and card writing. And then… then it all came to an end. Because…

…the snow has started. No quiet whispers into winter; it came in shouting its presence. Two days before the official beginning, we were pelted with snow. Fierce, fierce snow. Running on Friday morning, the sunrise was amazing, a fiery feast of reds in the sky, but then I remembered “Red skies at night, sailors delight; red skies at morning, sailor’s warning.” True enough in this case. I felt bad for Doodles who had a field trip canceled on Friday. Everyone had early releases in anticipation of the storm. I ran with my kids to the supermarket, along with the rest of the world and stocked up on supplies. Shabbat dinner for Friday. Snacks for Saturday. Milk for hot chocolate. Everything we needed. Everything. Oh, wait, except the toilet paper. I forgot the toilet paper. Oops!

That night the kids couldn’t wait to get out in the snow, so I bundled them up Friday evening to get their snow groove on. Nothing like the first trying on of winter boots to realize that they no longer fit. Doodles is a good size larger than his boot, but we managed to sausage his foot in. That night, we got about eight inches of snow, which would have been fine if that had been it.

Saturday morning I stupidly decided not to do my run, to save it for Sunday. Which meant, obviously, that Sunday was much worse. However, not knowing that, I had a lovely walk with Pie on the bike path so we could walk to Walgreens for toilet paper and new Color Wonder books. I did a bit of snow shoveling to unbury our cars. I got my hair done. Doodles got a new hockey hair cut so his hair no longer hurts his face. And then we stupidly decided–on a snowy day, the last weekend before Christmas–to brave L.L. Bean to get Doodles some new boots. What a freakin’ nightmare. And no boots in his size. So he’s going to have to suffer a bit longer. But overall it was a relaxing day, with all of us watching A Christmas Story (well, not completely relaxing–the bully in the movie terrified the kids). A lovely snow day.

And then there was today. One snow day too many. The snow started up again. And again. And again. Religious school canceled. Sleep didn’t happen last night as the toddler in the next apartment over is sick, and was up every hour from 3:15 till wake up time. I’ve got just over a month till I run Miami with my cousin, and I haven’t gotten enough mileage in. So in the sleet/snow/freezing rain, in the sub-freezing temperatures, a savage wind upon me, on the snow that feels like sand, except where it feels like ice, I managed to run 18 miles (it wasn’t quite uphill both ways, barefoot, but it was close). I’m cold. I’m beat. I’m tired. The kids want to go outside. I throw on a dry shirt. We head outside. Pie, in the hallway, sniffs her nose.

“Mommy, there’s something stinky in here!”

“I don’t smell anything, Pie.”

Pie puts on her biggest grin. “Mommy!” she says. “I think it’s you! You’re stinky!” Way to win points, Pie.

Tonight, the first night of Hanukkah, we went to friends’ for dinner. It was truly lovely, but I was so scared driving there and back. I was as tense as could be. Normally I’m the driver, but these days, it’s all Adam, because I refuse to drive in the snow. Trying to get out of our friends’ driveway at the end of the evening just about did me in, as our wheels spun and our car fishtailed. I just closed my eyes and Adam did a little digging and a little gunning and finally got us out. But, man, does that terrify me.

Part of me is really hoping school isn’t canceled tomorrow as it’s Pie’s last day before the winter break and I’m supposed to go into Doodles’s classroom to make latkes with them, but part of me is terrified to go out there–it’s supposed to turn to rain soon, which means it’ll be a sheet of ice out there–so part of me hopes it’s canceled so we can stay inside the entire day. Hey, the kids got some presents tonight–they’ve got stuff to play with. And I’m not above a day of PBS Sprout, if that’s what’s called for.

Meanwhile, as hard as it is to imagine, I’m supposed to go to our storage this week to pull out our summer clothes for our annual pilgrimage to Miami. I can’t fathom being ready. I can’t fathom getting our car out of here. I can’t fathom ever being out of this tiny apartment and back in our house (although we’re giving our 60 day notice on the apartment this week). I can’t fathom a place that isn’t buried in snow. I can’t fathom that we’ve been here since it was shorts weather. I can’t fathom. Period. I’m going to bury myself in bed. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up with a fresh dose of fathom.

My son really, really loves Star Wars. Hasn’t seen it yet, of course. However, I’ve authorized the gifting of Episode IV for Doodles for Hanukkah. However, I’m a little fearful. Last night we woke up from a bad dream. In his bad dream, someone was out to get him. Who? you might ask. Well of course. It was King Antiochus. If a Roman king can keep him up at night, just think what Jabba the Hut will do for him.

***

Getting Pie dressed in the morning is always something of an ordeal. She has very specific ideas about what she wants to wear, but sometimes they can’t be formulated until she’s stood in front of her clothes for five minutes. “Today I want to wear… pants! No! A long-sleeved dress! No! A skirt! That one. With… not that top. No, not that top. Not that one either. Um, okay, that one!”

Doodles, of course, gets himself dressed in the morning. His clothes don’t always completely coordinate, but if he doesn’t care, I don’t care either. However, I noticed that he was wearing the same clothes week in, week out. The same five shirts. The same five pants. Which was surprising because he had so many other tops that I was pretty sure he liked.

And then, I realized something. Doodles wears five tops and five bottoms. On the weekend, Adam washes the clothes. He puts those five tops and five bottoms away. On the top. In the drawer. Of course. As an experiment, I went into the drawer, took the five tops and the five bottoms, and I placed them on the bottom of the clothes piles in the drawers. Choosing my five favorite shirts that he hadn’t worn in a while, I put those on the top. I also put vaguely coordinating pants on the top in the bottom drawer.

And, voila! The next week, we had an entirely new wardrobe on the boy. He cares so little about his clothes that he simply grabs whatever is on the top of the pile. So now I do a weekly clothes rotation, and he never knows that I’m choosing what he wears.

***

My sister-in-law will out of town the coming weekend and we’ll be in Miami Beach shortly after that, so we got together yesterday with everyone to celebrate Hanukkah early. My SIL gave to Pie a purse with a zipper that Pie loved. But what was even better is that in the purse was a bunch of foreign money, primarily Egyptian money, from a trip SIL took a couple of years ago.

Pie took the money out, put the money back in. She leafed through it. She held it close. Oh, money! But then when she got to the coins, she took one look at the Twenty Piastres piece, and declared, “Mommy, it’s broken.” She handed me the coin. “You keep it. I don’t want it. It’s missing a piece.”

Don’t you go trying to pass off any wooden nickels to my little girl!

The apartment no longer smells of bologna, because the stink of burnt sugar has overridden it. And I don’t mean the yummy smell of caramelized sugar; I mean the stench of sugar that smoked up and snuck into every nook and cranny. That smell of burnt sugar. Note to self: don’t leave check Facebook while toffee syrup is cooking.

To continue with New York trip #1: A quick note about Thanksgiving: Everything, and I mean everything, was open, it seemed. Whole Foods? Open. Gristede’s? Open. The bagel store? Open. The liquor store? Open. To me, half the fun of Thanksgiving is realizing you’ve forgotten some important ingredient and having to make some sort of odd substitution in a panic-stricken way. It loses some of the magic when you can pop down to the local market and pick up that bag of cranberries or the bottle of bourbon (neither of which I forgot–my bourbon-spiked sweet potatoes, by the way, were fabulous, if I do say so myself).

On both Friday and Saturday night, Adam and I were able to escape sans kids. One lovely dinner at AOC. Another lovely dinner at Le Zie. A movie. A real movie. With no cartoon characters or people singing in high-pitched voices (Slumdog Millionaire, which was amazing!).

Saturday was even better because while Adam and my father took Doodles to the Museum of Natural History and my mom to Pie to the Central Park Zoo, I had sushi and beer with the Tweedle Twirp. Happiness all around! Of course, Pie being Pie, my mother reported that they took the subway up to the zoo. The zoo is three blocks from the subway stop. But upon exiting the subway, Pie announced, “I can’t walk. I’m too tired.”

Now, any self-respecting parent–as my mother was at one time–knows that the proper response to this is, “Well, if you’re that tired, we’ll turn around and go back to the apartment.” It is not, as my mother said, “Taxi!” Yes, my diva daughter got her Nana to spring for a taxi to go the entire three blocks from the subway to the zoo. And I wonder why she has such princess tendencies.

The trip was a success and the ride back was almost tolerable, except for Pie shouting for the last hour, “I want to get out of my seat RIGHT NOW!” and Adam’s shortcut that took us an extra hour. The highlight was Pie taking her bag of carrots and her water bottle and chucking them across the car. That girl might have a future as a ball player… as long as it doesn’t mess up her nails, of course (nails painted by Nana, colors chosen by Pie: black on the left foot, red on the right).

The following weekend I returned to New York with three girlfriends, Beetle; Jasmine’s mother who needs a name of her own, but of course, like all princesses, Jasmine doesn’t have a living mother (quick–name a Disney princess with a mother!); and a third friend who we met up there, A.

As enjoyable as the first trip was, this was a whole new experience. We weren’t sure which subway to take. Doesn’t matter! Just hop on! No one needs a snack or a bathroom or is whining, “When will we get there?” We’ll figure it out as we go. At every meal–every meal!!!–no one insisted on eating off my plate. No one used an outdoor voice in the restaurant. No one said, “I’m tiiiired. Can we go home yet? How much longer?”

We had sushi at 11 p.m. Music and beer at National Underground. An incredible nine-mile run with Beetle around the tip of Manhattan (we saw Chelsea Piers, Ground Zero, the Statue of Liberty, Battery Park, South Street Seaport–really nice). Breakfast at noon at Markt. A bit of shopping. Some cookies. An amazing Broadway show. And a midnight dinner at Le Zie again for me. Breakfast on Sunday at City Bakery, and back and back again, lickety split. The ride back was fast, despite bad weather. Relaxation. Grown-up time. Fun. And then… home.

And now? Bye bye relaxation. Bye bye grown-up time. Bye bye fun. Now it’s back to holiday shopping, baking, gift wrapping, child wrangling, house remodeling, tiny apartments, smelly bedrooms, bathrooms in need of cleaning, laundry machines that are always in use by the neighbors, yadda yadda yadda.

I’m going to make (read: reheat Whole Foods’) dinner. I wish you all a happy yadda yadda yadda.

There are two main reasons I don’t post: one, I have nothing to write about. Or two, I have so much to write about that I can’t find the time to sit down and when I do sit down, I don’t know where to begin. It’s been more of the latter. At the moment, Doodles is in kindergarten (I started to write preschool–still can’t wrap my head around having a kindergartener) and Pie is actually, kind of, sort of playing nicely behind me. If this post ends abruptly, you’ll know it’s because “playing nicely” turned into “complete meltdown,” which is what happens every day. The question is the when.

I’ve had two trips to New York, a kindergarten conference, holiday shopping, and house building shenanigans. But that’s not what’s compelled me to blog today. Today I blog because my bedroom smells. Specifically, of bologna. Why does my bedroom smell of bologna? I have no idea. No one in the family eats bologna. Why does that compel me to blog? Again, no idea. But lying in bed last night, unable to get the smell of bologna out of my nose, I thought, “I should blog about this.” So here I am.

Actually the whole apartment smells. I sort of think that this might be a reflection upon my cleaning skills. I’m pretty good about vacuuming almost daily (the kids eat over a rug), but the nice bottles of environmentally-friendly cleaners I bought in a fit of optimism when we first moved in have remained pretty much untouched. But they sure do look pretty! Our contractor feels pretty optimistic that we can move back into the house the first week of February. That’s just about seven weeks. And we’re spending a week and a half of that in Miami Beach for New Year’s. So that’s just five and a half weeks of smell. Clean? Or stink? For five and a half weeks, I can live with stink. I’m practical like that.

While I’m here, I might as well tell you about New York. The first trip with the family over Thanksgiving was actually a real success. The kids were engaged and had fun and basically left me alone. Perfect! On Thursday morning, after we all watched the parade, I cooked and my dad, well, I guess he kind of supervised, the Nana, the Tweedle Twirp, and the Adam took the kids ice skating at Bryant Park. A lovely (but ill timed–even with a pre-cooked turkey, I was off) dinner ensued. The next day, the foursome of my family headed to the Fire Museum, which was quite interesting, although I made the mistake of attempting to explain 9/11 to Doodles. I thought he’d think it was something removed, a long, long time ago, but when he realized it was only seven years ago, he said, “Mom, that’s not long ago at all!” After the museum, Adam and Pie met up with my parents to go to MOMA. Pie loved the video exhibition and the “painting with the farmer. The green one.”

Meantime, Doodles and I went shopping in SoHo. The boy is game, I’ll tell you. I haven’t really blogged much about it, but I’ve become quite crafty in my old age (“crafty” in a Martha Stewart way; not a Beastie Boys way). I haven’t written much about it primarily because I plan on giving some of my handicrafts as gifts and I don’t want any of the surprise given away here. I really wanted to make a pilgrimage to a fabric store I remembered from my days as a New Yorker, and Doodles was actually very well behaved. Of course, we stopped at Evolution and we picked up a pair of glittens for him, but he sat almost patiently while I went through button boxes. We then headed up for the East Village to Tweeds’s apartment, which is better than any store for the toys in it. We had to tear Doodles away to head for lunch at Benny’s.

And with my quesadilla grande, I’m going to leave you for the moment. No, no meltdowns (yet). Just time to run off to kindergarten pickup….

Pie is a three year old. Pie has a head cold. So using the transitive property, you can correctly induce that Pie is the devil incarnate.

Last night Pie woke up with a lovely cough at about midnight. But instead of whining about her cough, she decided to go a less obvious route: “Moommmmmy! Moooommmmmy! I peed in my Pull-Up!”

As you may very well know, peeing in a Pull-Up, well, not a big deal. That’s what they’re there for. That’s why Pie doesn’t sleep in underwear. But being the kind parents we are, we offered to change her Pull-Up. So we got the footie pjs and the Pull-Up off. And that’s where the fun began. Pie decided she didn’t want to put a Pull-Up back on. But she sleeps in our bed. Pretty much on top of us. And we weren’t going to risk a Pull-Up free night.

We beg. She screams her head off. We plead. She screams her head off. We negotiate. She screams her head off. It’s now close to 1 a.m. Finally, I say, “Look, Pie, this Pull-Up has to go on. You can put it on nicely. We can put it on like it’s a diaper. Or we can put it on by force. Your choice.”

Obviously she picked the only sensible answer. “By fooooorrrrrce!! Put it on by force.”

So we did. Which ensued in more screaming. I’m pretty sure our neighbors (yea, screaming child in an apartment building!) had the phone books opened to DSS and were poised to dial.

Adam tried to work his magic. “Pie, everyone is sleeping. You need to sleep, too.”

But that Hah-vahd MBA taught Adam nothing. Because Pie outsmarted him. “But the people driving outside–I can see their headlights–they’re not sleeping!”

“Pie,” I told her, “they’re not sleeping because you are keeping them awake. They’re driving away to find some place quieter. If you’d just go to sleep, they could come back and go to sleep.”

And damn if she didn’t. And tonight? Tonight she was dosed with Triaminic Nighttime. If you can’t beat them, drug them!

It’s a sad comment that we live in a ‘burb fifteen minutes outside of Boston, and yet when we say we’re going into “the City,” we mean New York and we tend to do it about twice as often as we go into Boston.

Normally we host Thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Yes, that’s right, I enjoy hosting Thanksgiving. I love the planning. I love the cooking. I love the decorating. I even love the cleaning up after and that satisfaction of a fridge full of leftovers. Yes, I am a geek. Yes, my mother will wonder how she raised a daughter like me after that paragraph (rebellion against childhood upbringing, of course).

But, obviously, with our tiny little apartment kitchen, our dining room table in the middle of the living room, and the general disarray of our house life, we’re not hosting this year. Next year, ah, next year with my 36″ stove and wide counter space… But this year, we decided to make the trek down to the City to have Thanksgiving with my parents and the Tweedle Twirp. Of course, my parents’ city apartment is considerably larger than our home apartment, but the kitchen is 1) not that big and 2) completely not set up for cooking. It’s set up for getting bagels from Murray’s and burgers from New York Burger Company. In preparing what to cook (my mother’s exact words, “You can have Thanksgiving at our place. But I’m not doing any cooking!”), I quizzed my father. “Do you have a muffin pan?” I hear rustling and clanking, “Ah, no.” “Do you have a baking pan of any size? 8 x 8? 9 x 9? 9 x 13? Even a pie plate?” “Ah…no.”

So we’re not exactly cooking a full meal. The Tweedle Twirp ordered a turkey, stuffing, gravy, and green beans (who really likes cooking green beans?) from Balducci’s. I’m making bourbon-spiked sweet potato (and, yes, I’m going the gauche route and still added marshmallows; the bourbon is for me, the sweet potato is for my kids), sour cream-thyme muffins, and cranberry sauce. Tweeds is baking the pumpkin pie.

There’s the background. Yesterday I convinced Adam to work from home. He got up early and got online while I buzzed around like a madwoman. Got Doodles to school. Plopped Pie in front of a very rare morning of TV. Packed. Cleaned. Organized. Got us all out the door and to Doodles’s school by 10:30 a.m. (“We’re late! Come on, Pie and Adam!” “It’s only 10:25. Doesn’t it start at 10:45?” Does this man live on some planet where the time is adjusted funny? Whenever I tell him a starting time, he adds at least fifteen minutes to it.)

We make it to his school just on time to see our little pilgrim enter the cafeteria for their big feast. Each class made a part of the feast. Doodles’s class made corn bread. Another made soup. One made apple pies. And the fourth made–just like the pilgrims–fruit kabobs. After the feast, all the pilgrims got up and performed for us, such Thanksgiving classics such as “Albuquerque Turkey,” “The Tom Tom Song,” “There Are Many Things I’m Thankful For,” and “Tony Chestnut.” The singing ended at 11:14. At exactly 11:14:02 I had those kids in the bathroom and then out the door. We were on the road at 11:22. Which is awesome because apparently a few hours later there was an accident that caused the Pike to close a bit.

We made it down in decent time; we took on short cut and hit traffic outside of New Haven and Hartford and there was one relatively long pit stop when Pie had to pee, but we arrived in the city (meaning we crossed into the Bronx) about 4:30. It took a bit to get into Manhattan proper, but the great moment was when we got lost in Central Park. In my defense, in all my years living in New York, I never, ever drove. Really. Even on my own student film shoots at NYU when I had to rent a van, I got someone else to drive.

Why were we in Central Park in the first place? I had the brilliant idea that Adam would drop me and Pie off to watch the Thanksgiving Day balloons inflate (Doodles was invited as well, but he had no interest). I got the directions from Google Maps, which told us to take the 79th Street transverse. Only the 79th Street transverse was closed. So we entered at 72nd street. Which apparently takes us back up to 110th Street. By 5:30, Pie and I decamped at Central Park West and 81st.

In my mind, I envisioned a casual stroll among the balloons, a little oohing and ahhing, and then a quick subway back for dinner with everyone else. Not quite…

As we got to the corner, where we could see Buzz Lightyear and Spongebob we were stopped by barricades. First we were just stopped as Mayor Bloomberg passed. And then we were stopped as we were told that we had to enter the balloon inflating at 79th and Columbus. Pie was a real trooper and just kept periodically shouting, “New York! Yea, New York!” We headed over to 79th and Columbus. And waited. And waited. In masses and masses of crowds. Just waited. Finally we got to cross over and into the barricades where we got shuffled down to 77th Street.

We were smushed in, but that Pie didn’t care. “Where are the balloons? Where are the balloons?” Finally, after about an hour, we made it to the balloons. And Pie was entranced. “Who’s that? Who’s that?” We saw Pikachu (who I originally said, “Look, it’s Homer Simpson!”) and Ronald McDonald and Hello Kitty (who I said, “Look! A turkey!”) and Dora the Explorer (recognizable at 1000 paces), Snoopy (who I said was, “I have no idea who that is”), the Energizer bunny. At the end of the row was a Smurf. “Pie, I said. That’s a Smurf!” At that moment we came to a sudden halt (I will say that we were able to get right up to the barricades and see the balloons and it moved at an easy pace) as the mayor gave a press conference just in front of the Smurf. “That’s the mayor,” I told Pie.

Finally we made it down 77th Street. I did gave Pie the choice of going to the balloons on 81st Street or heading back down to the apartment for dinner. She thought about it and decided to head back, which was good because it was already after 7 and I was hungry.

We headed to the subway. You’ve never seen a kid so excited to be on a subway. “It’s the subway! Yea, subway! Why isn’t the subway moving? Oh, that’s silly! It is! Is this our stop? Is this our stop? Is this our stop? Yea, subway!”

Back at the apartment, we got ourselves some burgers, came back, played. My kids did nap in the car. Their normal bedtime is 7 p.m. At 10:15 Pie finally fell asleep. Doodles fell asleep shortly after.

So 10:15 bedtime. Any guesses on wake up time? Yep, 5:45 for Pie. A cranky 5:45. But she got up. And since she was up, we had the obligatory conversation about whether or not to go see the parade in person (general advice is to arrive by 6:30 a.m. to get a good place to see the 9 a.m. parade). My daughter exhibited a rare moment of wisdom and opted for the TV.

Happily, the Nana was up soon, so Pie had a playmate while Adam and I went back to sleep. I got up just in time for the start of the parade. The kids were very enthusiastic and sure enough, Pie yelled, “I saw that last night. I saw that bunny last night! I saw that star last night!” And as that giant Smurf passed by, that great big blue inflated Smurf, Pie yelled out, “Look! It’s the mayor! Doodles, that’s the mayor!”

And that’s our Thanksgiving until now, 9:30 a.m. Doodles is playing with Tinker Toys. Pie is doing naked tushie dancing in front of the parade on TV. Adam and my father are off picking up a pre-cooked turkey. And we’ve got a whole weekend ahead of us. Tune in for more turkey adventures. And happy Thanksgiving!

So as a completely biased, totally subjective, blinded-by-love mom, I can state with absolute certainty that my son is the most adorable five year old ever created and my daughter is the most beautiful thing on earth. I’m fine if you disagree with me. In fact, I expect you to.

The thing is, people tend to fawn over Pie a bit. The girl is unquestionably a fashionista and whenever possible, she will dress as if she were going to a black tie event. Today, though, after her ice skating class, we headed to the mall to make a dent in our holiday shopping (and, Peter, if you don’t tell me ASAP what you want, you’re getting this). We went straight from her ice skating class, so she was donned in her “dancing” outfit–a pink leotard with a flower skirt (over a turtleneck and tights). We could not walk more than 50 yards without an “Oh, isn’t she adorable! [Person standing next to her] Have you ever seen someone so darling?” I worry what it’s going to do to her, all these folks telling her how pretty she is. I mean, I’m her mom. That’s my job. Honestly, I think it was the outfit. But the message is questionable.

But we made it through shopping. We went to the mall because I had bought Doodles a pair of gloves that was size 4-6. Those things won’t fit him until he’s 12. Seriously. He looks like some (very good looking) robot thing when he has them on. So Pie and I headed to the mall after skating class. I got a holiday gift for my brother- & sister-in-law. I got some lovely Hanukkah bowls for my family. I got Eloise for my kids as we’re going to NYC for Thanksgiving and I thought it would get them in a New York holiday kind of mood. A couple of other holiday gifts were taken care of. And the mittens? The mittens that were the sole purpose of my trip to the mall? I remembered those halfway down the Middlesex Turnpike on my home. So, kindergarten, here comes robot-boy!

While I was at the mall with a most agreeable shopper (seriously, that girl loves to shop especially if there are samples. Any kind of samples. Food. Lotion. Lip gloss), I figured it was nigh time I bought myself a lipstick. I own a lip stick. It’s very pretty. I got it for my wedding. Six and a half years ago. I figure it’s time to update my collection. I’ve also been meaning to do this crazy thing I’ve been hearing about: washing my face at night. Yep, I never got into the habit. I stopped by Sephora.

I needed help. Really. So I asked for help. “I need a lipstick. Not expensive.” And it was actually helpful because I ended up with a lipstick in–I think–a not hideous color for under $20, which I figured was fine. I mean, according to the New York Times sales of lipstick is an indicator of the economy (which may be a myth, but who cares?). I’m just proving the economy is in the crapper. The woman said to me, “Do you want to try another product?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m game.”

She proceeds to pull out some skin stuff. “Are you wearing makeup now?”

“I’m wearing makeup never,” I told her.

“Okay,” she says and she goes into her spiel about this great new skin product. It’s a foundation! It’s a concealer! It’s a powder!

“It’s how much?” I ask.

“$57,” she said.

“Yikes!” I replied. “A bit much for me.”

“It’s really economical,” she assured me. “It takes the place of your foundation and your powder and your concealer–“

“Yes, but since I don’t use any of those anyway, it’s really not saving me any money, is it?”

And I left her speechless. From the look on her champion saleswoman face, I’m guessing that doesn’t happen too often. No comeback. She had the good grace to let me go quietly.

The woman in skin care was more my speed. “I don’t wash my face. Really. When I do wash it in the shower, I use plain old soap. But I’m forty. And there are wrinkles. I won’t spend a lot. Do something for me.” She steered me to a (relatively) cheap face wash and loaded me up with samples. “Use one pump twice a day.”

“Really?” I said. “Because if I remember to use it once a day, I’ll consider myself really well groomed.”

So now I have a lipstick. And a face wash. And it’s exciting. Which means that the transformation to suburban haus frau is complete. I went shopping. With my beauty pageant daughter. And then I blogged about it. Tomorrow’s post will be about how to remove those stubborn coffee and tea stains from your white mugs (sneak preview: baking soda!).

It’s a good thing.