{"id":367,"date":"2008-02-27T09:36:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-27T09:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/2008\/02\/%c2%bfquien-es-el-mas-macho-not-me.html"},"modified":"2008-02-27T09:36:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-27T09:36:00","slug":"%c2%bfquien-es-el-mas-macho-not-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/2008\/02\/%c2%bfquien-es-el-mas-macho-not-me.html","title":{"rendered":"\u00c2\u00bfQui\u00c3\u00a9n es el m\u00c3\u00a1s macho? Not Me!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was 26, I quit a good job, packed up all my belongings, spent three months driving cross country to reinvent myself. When I was settled in Seattle, I’d sometimes look at my life in wonder and think, “Wow, if I could that, I can do anything.”<\/p>\n

When I was 28, I spent six and a half months picking kiwis on a kibbutz and then I spent a month and a half idling my way through Eastern Europe. When I survived three weeks in Bulgaria, I really felt it was an accomplishment. “If I could make it through Bulgaria on my own,” I thought, “I can do anything.”<\/p>\n

When at the age of 32 I let my guy friends pressure me into riding a single-day double-century bike ride from Seattle to Portland (previous bike ride length at that point: 16 miles), I can’t begin to describe the feeling of elation I experienced when I, alone and tired after fourteen hours on a bike, crossed into Portland, Oregon. “I just freakin’ rode my bike two hundred miles!” I thought. “I can do anything!”<\/p>\n

When at the age of 36, with a fourteen-month-old son, I completed my first marathon, I thought I was a rock star. Sure, it took me over five hours, but I did it. “I ran twenty six point two miles!” I thought. “There is absolutely nothing I can’t achieve.”<\/p>\n

Last week I pushed my boundaries. I left my kids for the first time, I cross-country skied for the first time, I ran in seven degree weather. You guys all know how macho I felt. I am a freakin’ woman of steel.<\/p>\n

Until. And then. Except.<\/p>\n

Somehow, somewhere, for some reason, I decided it was a good idea to take my two children–my two-and-a-half-year-old toddler and my four-and-a-half-year-old preschooler–to New York City. In a car. By myself. For fun.<\/p>\n

I have discovered that thing that I cannot do: I cannot survive thirty-six hours alone with my children. <\/p>\n

I am broken.<\/p>\n

But let me start at the beginning of this debacle. Doodles has been obsessed with Egypt, pharaohs, and pyramids for a long time now. Remember his birthday party? So I got this great idea (please read “great” dripping with sarcasm) of taking him to the Metropolitan Museum to visit the Temple of Dendur. “Wanna go to New York?” I asked him casually. “YES!!!!” came the resounding response.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, I dilly dallied on the whole thing. I checked with my parents (who live in NYC part-time) and my sister (who lives there full-time, but works a hectic schedule) if they’d be around. I checked the weather. Hmmm, looks like snow. I thought about it. And then I realized, “This is a really stupid idea.” I basically told everyone we weren’t coming. “That’s probably a good idea,” my parents told me. My mother had foot surgery and has been hobbling around on a cane, not ideal for sightseeing with little ones. My sister would be teaching all day. Both my parents are currently spending a lot of their time searching for a bigger apartment.<\/p>\n

Alas, the road to insanity is paved with stupid ideas (that’s how the expression goes, right?). On Wednesday morning, I was poking around Priceline. It was a gorgeous morning and I thought, “I can handle this!” so before I could come to my senses: Boom! I’ve booked us a room for two nights in New York.<\/p>\n

That’s when the panic started. I called Adam, “What the F was I thinking? I can’t do this!”<\/p>\n

“Don’t go,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I already paid for the hotel room.”<\/p>\n

“So what? We can eat the cost if we have to.”<\/p>\n

But I, for one, am never one to “eat the cost,” frugal soul that I have, so while Doodles was at a playdate, I frantically packed us up, sinking ever deeper into a depression over my recklessness. After all, what does a four-and-a-half-year-old ever remember? Take a kid on a thousand dollar vacation to Paris, and what he’ll talk about is the bug he found crawling across his shoe at the Parisian playground.<\/p>\n

So I sent Doodles off on a playdate and I packed up as fast as I could, trying to anticipate everything they’d need. It would have helped if I had tried to anticipate what I<\/i> might have needed–in which case socks and deodorant might have made their way into my bag, and yes, I was a wee bit ripe by the end of the trip. Yet I wanted to keep everything to my one bag, their ice skating bag (I had visions of Wollman rink), plus toys in each of their backpacks. And a bag of snacks for the car.<\/p>\n

The trip down was pretty uneventful. I picked up Doodles from his playdate and cleared up the confusion (“You’re taking him to New York to see the temple where the Jews pray?” I clarified it was where the Egyptians prayed, but he didn’t quite believe me). Pie slept for about an hour and a half and woke in relatively good spirits. Doodles was thrilled to get Triscuits–Triscuits!!–from a vending machine. Neither one got at all fussy till we’d already hit the Bronx. Including the one bathroom\/vending machine stop, we made the trip in just barely over four hours. Found the hotel with no problem. Parking was just two blocks away. Trip is already a success!<\/p>\n

We hop a subway to head to my parents’ apartment. Pie utters the comment she is to make every time we get onto the subway, “I LIKE the subway!” and Doodles scrambles for a window seat, despite my repeated insistence that we are underground and there is nothing to see! “Yes there is!” he insists. “Look! A wall!”<\/p>\n

Dinner a Benny’s Burritos (the West Village one) is fine, although surprise surprise both kids make a dinner of chips. We leave my parents at about seven to head back to the hotel. “I LIKE the subway!” “I need a window seat!”<\/p>\n

Out of the subway. Walking back to the hotel. And then it starts. The screams. “I want to go home!!!!” I assure Pie we’ll be back at the hotel in minutes. “No, HOME! I want to go home! RIGHT NOW!” For two blocks the munchkin is screaming and she won’t be appeased till we get back to the room and I turn on the TV. I make up a lovely nest for them on the floor–they’re so excited to sleep on the sleeping bag!–and in three seconds, they’ve happily ensconced themselves in the bed. So much for spacious living. Of course, Pie is incapable of falling asleep without some tears, and she cries for about thirty minutes, while I lie right next to her, ignoring her as I read my book. It’s really the only thing to do.<\/p>\n

And then, they’re all asleep. It’s not easy to sleep with the two monkeys next to me. They end up head to head with each other, all cozied up, and then the next thing I feel is four little feet kicking my side as they’re lying perpendicular to me. But at least I can stop worrying about one of them falling out of the bed and I can drift off…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>…until 2 a.m. Which is when the screaming started. Did you guys know that there is no toddler-appropriate TV on at 2 a.m.? Really! I know it’s shocking. I didn’t know how to calm the munchkin who has not only woken me and her brother, but I’m pretty sure is waking the whole hotel. So for an hour, she gets to watch The Fresh Prince of Bel Air<\/i>. It was the most appropriate thing I could find. <\/p>\n

At 4 a.m., she drifts off into sleep, and I’m determined to eat the second night’s hotel cost and head back. Yet, at 8 a.m., when everyone is awake, I feel delirious from lack of sleep and think, “We can make it one more night. Right?”<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, the day was somewhat of a success. The kids loved the Met. Doodles was fascinated by the mummies and the Temple of Dendur and Pie seemed to enjoy the Degas collection (one of her favorite books is Dancing with Degas<\/i><\/a>). My mother met us for a bit and Tweeds came when my mom left. We had lunch at the mus
\neum and when Tweeds had to go to work, the kids and I took a bus down a ways (“I LIKE the bus!”) and I let them go hog wild in Dylan’s Candy Bar<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Back at the hotel room around 3, and there were no complaints when I let them gorge themselves on their candy and watch PBS. Pie was tired–I didn’t bring a stroller out with us–but she revived quickly when presented with chocolate. I didn’t revive quite so quickly. The wear and tear of corralling those two through the museum (“Don’t touch that! Don’t wander off! No, you can’t eat in the museum! No I won’t buy that! Don’t touch! Don’t touch! DON’T TOUCH!”) took a toll on me and all I could do was let them rest so that I could have a minute of downtime (“Mommy are you going to sleep? No, Mommy!” Pie says laughing. “You have to wake up! WAKE UP, MOMMY!!”) We met my parents for dinner again and Pie told them her favorite part of the day was, “I like the Degas,” and Doodles told them, “I got to watch TV… during the day<\/i>!”<\/p>\n

On Friday a snow storm was predicted so I wanted to get out of town nice and early. It was nothing major–just two to four inches–but I figured why risk traffic and snow. Of course, by the time we woke up at 6:45 a.m., three inches had already fallen and five to seven inches was expected, so I rushed the kids through their hotel breakfast (“Can I have a yogurt? Can I have an orange? Can I have more cereal? Can I have a bagel with cream cheese? Can I have another waffle?” and “Just a waffle for me. Okay a little cereal. No milk in it!”), and I managed to trudge through the snow with Pie in the stroller, the skate bag around my neck (“Why didn’t we go ice skating?” “Uh, I took you for candy instead.” “Okay!”), the clothing bag also around my neck, and the diaper bag hanging precariously as I discovered that, no, a $10 umbrella stroller cannot make it through the corner snow banks. But we got back to the car, and headed out in the mess.<\/p>\n

The trip home was painfully slow–I skidded a few times on I-95, the snow was so bad–and the kids were edgy. At one point, I’m on the Triboro bridge, looking for signs for the Bruckner expressway. I’m trying desperately to see through the snowy fog and the moron car in front of me doesn’t have his lights on, making him nearly invisible. The snow is coming down fast, and I need to make sure I don’t accidentally head toward the George Washington bridge. I’ve shushed the kids as I’m trying to not skid across the road, but I keep hearing a “Mommy! Mommy. MOMMY!” and finally I yell back, “What, Pie? I’m trying to concentrate here,” and she asks, “Can you open my window?” and then adds, “Pleeeeaaaase?”<\/p>\n

The “No,” didn’t go over that well. So she then turns to her brother: “Doodles? Doodles! DOOOOODLES! Are you awake, Doodles?” As if he had a choice.<\/p>\n

Just over five hours later, we’ve arrived home. Of course, I needed to shovel my way into the driveway, as the storm followed us, but soon we were inside, ready to collapse. Pictures<\/a>, by the way, are posted.<\/p>\n

Would I do it again? Sure. In three years. With a nanny. And a lobotomy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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