One August Saturday, Julie and I revisited our old neighborhood. First we went to the Lincoln Center Atrium (where we used to hang out so much we became friends with the manager) to make tap shoes that Julie enjoyed testing out during a tap/swing show.
Then we met up with Max’s school friend Zayanna – who Julie thinks is her friend – and her little brother for a workshop at the American Folk Art Museum. As always, Julie held her own with the older kids, making a yarn-covered bumble bee she flew around the museum.
Then we went to a Lincoln Center Out of Doors performance of Latino music & poetry but Julie was mostly interested in sticking popsicle sticks in her bumble bee, drawing in the dirt and being BFF with a 5-year-old.
While we miss living blocks away from cultural meccas, we still visit often. But for weekends like these when our cultural plans get foiled by spring snow and sniffles, it’s nice to have a big house with a toy room and pirate ship to relax in.
One day Julie kept asking to watch the ‘hot video’ on the computer. I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about, then she said ‘where I have band-aids on my knees. And I’m dancing.’ So here’s the video, along with the backstory:
One August morning while Max was in camp, Julie and I met a friend at the Museum of The City of New York to see the cool exhibit City as Canvas: Graffiti Art. She loved the crazy street art (and didn’t want to stand still for photos).
Outside we discovered some break dancers. Julie joined in.
The group was on a hip hop tour of NYC that included dance lessons. Julie crashed.
But really she just wanted to jump.
Word.
Then we had a picnic in Central Park with some city friends and a cute puppy. Julie may act tough, but she threw the dog treats on the ground, too scared to get close.
As we suffer through snow storms and record cold, it’s fun to remember outdoor fun in July. We miss the playground! Especially this platform that moves.
loj
Max did a week of camp at Pelham Arts Center – which meant more chances to run through the beloved pink art installation.
One sunny day we met up with old neighbors at the Madeleine exhibits & storytime at the New-York Historical Society. We made our own cardboard tea sets and tried on Madeline accessories.
Then we hung out on benches and sang on stoops around the UWS.
At honey day on the High Line, we completed a flower scavenger hunt, met a hipster beekeeper with crazy hair and of course sampled some sweet nectar.
They wanted to thank the bees for the honey we bought.
Admiring a wet foot in the fountain.
We are very much looking forward to at least a little February sunshine when we head to Florida this Wednesday to see Mark’s parents.
So we’re way behind on our blog posts; it’s been a busy fall, with school for both kids (that they both love), visits from many grandparents and aunt Ashly, soccer, ballet & music classes, exploring our new hood while visiting the old one lots with family adventures around Westchester and Manhattan, working on Kid On The Town, and too many dr appointments for Max – DNA tests were inconclusive, sleep study (i.e. movie night with Dad) showed moderate sleep apnea, a sleep endoscopy showed his lingual tonsils had to be removed and his epiglottis stitched.
He had that surgery Monday and was a trooper like always and back to school on Wednesday, though he has been upset that he hasn’t been able to have fish oil and really mad he can’t eat pretzel crisps or other hard foods that Julie keeps talking about. Today he is back on his regular diet and we are off to Florida, escaping some bitter cold and excited to see Mark’s family. Overall he and Julie are doing great and talking and growing so much. Julie loves to jump and dance and just moved to a (pink) big girl bed. She knows what she wants and will insist on it, sometimes with very dramatic tantrums. Max is reading on his own and so good at math; Julie has some books memorized and she loves to ‘read’ and she count with vigor if not always accuracy. They are the best of friends – when they’re not fighting over who gets to brush his or her teeth first (or whatever) and we love listening to their conversations and some of the things they argue about:
Set lists (in the Neiman Marcus kids department).
Pajama spacesuits. We thought about cropping the end off but this is pretty typical.
Whose birthday it is. Max is obsessed with dates and calendars and has been very excited about going to Florida on Saturday. I tried to get a video of him talking about it but it turned into something else that made me laugh.
We have been taking lots of great photos; hope to post them soon!
Julie is getting so grown up. She loved the six-week Saturday morning toddler Montessori program at Max’s school. She worked very independently, arranging flowers, stacking, sorting, dancing and making her own snack. Now she gets even more upset when we drop off Max at school and she doesn’t get to go in.
At a Korean festival at the Natural History Museum, Julie liked watching K-pop in her Korean scholar’s hat and making bamboo paper collages.
She loves art class.
She often has strong opinions about what she wears. She chose this outfit with the yellow pants down to the striped socks. She loves scarves but her favorite accessory, indoor or out, is her Michigan hat – it goes with everything (or nothing).
In the photo above she’s holding the hand of a sitter we met at a bus stop after Max did a Sesame Street focus group (and Julie was in Elmo heaven), right away she took the sitter’s hand and said ‘bye-bye mommy.’ She also likes to say ‘go, mommy,’ like when I got on stage with her for a musical theater workshop at an arts festival at a local school. She stayed on stage with the big kids for the whole 30-minute workshop and was quite the star, even though she was selective about which moves she would actually do and got distracted by a hole in her tights (‘ripped,’ she’s trying to tell me).
She loves ‘dancing’ as she often says, esepcially ‘spinning.’ She talks so much already, other favorite phrases are “I’m one,” “going Dora’s house” (as in Dora the explorer), pointing out anything of Max’s (“Max’s shoes, Max’s water, Max’s boo-boo)” and “no sleepies – awake,” often heard around naptime – that’s when we know she’s tired.
Max is also so grown-up and fun to take on adventures. He made Quark dumplings with a famous Austrian chef at the Bryant Park Kids Food Fest. Yum.
He played a Greek kanaun at a Byzantine concert at Lincoln Center.
His writing is coming along (this says ‘Julie and Max’).
He’s starting to make jokes, most of which involve noses and hair, “i.e. let’s eat hair for lunch…(lots of giggles)’. He also likes to say “I see something silly! why…,” in this photo, “Why do I have duck feet?” (and it was pajama day at school, also very silly).
Then he put his hat on one foot, which made him half pirate.
Sitting on a ball, falling off a ball, and making a ‘snowman’ on what might have been our one sunny afternoon.
