A Special Announcement for the Meeting

OK, totally not kidding here. At the end of each Meeting (also called "rise" of Meeting), many Friends typically have announcements, either for the Meeting in general, the Yearly Meeting or even just a personal "concern" (charitable action) that they're taking. As the head member called out for more announcements, Alex kept raising his hand and I was gently pulling it back down. Eventually, the ...

Friend leading the adjournment called on him and asked him if he had anything to say. He said "Yeah. I just want to tell everyone about a really cool place." She eagerly asked him what it was and he said "It's called F.A.O. Schwarz." (This brought a hearty laugh from anyone assembled who heard him.) He continued "They have really cool Lego balls there."

George Fox and other early Friends argued that even children can speak truth in their messages, right? LOL

Aside though, I'm really glad he's feeling so at home there.

Four Years of Daffodils

Due to the unseasonably warm weather, many of the daffodils at the Center are already in full bloom.  Seeing daffodils at the Rye Nature Center always makes me think of the very first time Alex and I went there when he was only 1 year old.

The date was May 1, 2008 and these are somre of the photos I took then.  I found that daffodil broken by the side of the main road and gave it to him. I remember how delighted he was with it.  He didn't want to put it down, not even to investigate other items.

Seeing all of the daffodils out now, I couldn't resist staging some photos with them, just for the comparison.  So, while it hasn't yet been four years since we found the Rye Nature Center, I thought I'd move on the daffodils while they were in bloom.

My favorite photo from that afternoon

Alex also wanted to take some photos of the daffodils.  Like this extreme close up.

This is the approximate spot from where I picked up that first broken daffodil four years ago.  This batch isn't out yet.

Once done with the nostalgia, we continued on our regular, weekly walk through the woods and to the library.   Alex wanted to let everyone know that he really is a tree-hugger.

I love our walk out of the nature center almost as much as I love our walk in to the nature center on our way to his Preschool Ecology class.

Happy Anniversary Rye Nature Center. We're so glad we found you!  We've certainly seen you bloom in the past four years (since Christine became Director, especially.)

And, daffodils?  Thanks for just being you.

Thursdays = Good Stuff

I've always loved Thursdays. I actually don't know why or how it started.  It's just that it's always seemed that the best stuff of my life usually happened or happens on a Thursday.

Take, for example, this Winter and Spring.    Alex has Preschool Ecology on Thursdays, beginning at 12 PM.  Our bus arrives in Rye at around 11:25 AM. That leaves us lots of time to get to class.  We make the most of it by continuing our ritual of our walk from the Hammond Road entrance to the main building of the Rye Nature Center.

I love those mornings.  I know I'll remember them forever, even if Alex doesn't. Special things tend to happen on those morning walks.

Like this:

She's standing in the middle of the path we have to take to get to the main building in which his class is held.  Alex didn't want to come near for fear that his bright orange lunchbox would scare her away.

It's also on these walks that I allow Alex to take the camera and snap pictures of whatever he likes.

He loves him some Sweetgum pods.

He's convinced that places like these are Gnome Houses, where real gnomes live.

Thursdays also give us the opportunity to explore Rye in the Springtime.  Alex took these pictures of a croacus that had bloomed in a grassy spot in a parking lot. 

See? What did I tell you? Good stuff happens on Thursdays.

Alex Entertains the Koi

Music class would have proven to be too much stress for Mommy. She decided that it was Adventure Day instead. And Adventure Day would involve locating the Enid Haupt Glass Garden at the Rusk Institute on 34th Street. Alex wanted to know why we were in a hospital. (Because Mommy missed the signs at the entrance way, that's why.) Shortly, with the help of a staff member, we located the garden. Alex was thrilled to see it. I'd told him all about an Indoor Garden that we could visit and here it was.

The first thing you see is a turtle and koi pond. Alex loved seeing the water creatures and spent most of his time leaning over the edge to see them.

"Hello fishies! Let me tell you a story." And he preceded to tell them a story about a shark. I didn't hear all of it, so when I asked for details later, he told me that the story wasn't for me. It was for the fish and turtles. Especially for the fish that "looks like mashed potatoes". (A mostly white koi marbled with orange and black.) Oh, OK.

Storytime for the Residents of the Turtle Pond

A "mashed potato" fish

And another one that "looks like mashed potatoes"

Alex made a friend there, who was anxious to show him around and Alex was anxious to show him the "black fish" that was in the pond. 

And there was a back room in which the gardens extended and was home to numerous caged parrots, bunnies and even a resident cat.  One bird, an 8-year-old umbrella cockatoo named Chloe, would squawk loudly for attention.   Alex just loved her, especially because she looked like Nigel from Rio.

Later, we spent some time at the Children's Playgarden where he rode around in a CozyCoupe designed like a police car. He pretended he was a policeman, twice asking me if I needed help. (I had to be asked twice to clue in that the correct answer was "Yes.")

Playing in the sand pit of the Playgarden

It was cold out. I promised him that we'd be back when it was warmer. I had also looked forward to a calming East River Ferry Ride for only 8 dollars round trip. That wound up keeping us out later than I had planned. I've since learned that if I want Alex to be in a better mood during the day that he has to go to bed by 7:30. The reason we didn't go to Music Mind Games today was because he was in such a horrible mood when I picked him up from the Children's Learning Center.
But I like boats...and indoor gardens...and watching Alex play.

OK, next time. We'll get an earlier train next time.

You're STILL Here Ma?

We got the earlier train today. This meant that we could take our time getting uptown and take the bus.  Alex sat next to Daddy on the way uptown, but as we approached Dan's stop at 60th, I got up from my seat in order to sit next to Alex.  I explained to them both what I was doing.

"No!" Alex objected! "I don't want to sit next to you! You're a girl!!"

Little sexist fool! (Well, nah. I expected that this would emerge someday.)

But that was nothing compared to when we arrived at the Children's Learning Center.  You see, on Tuesdays, Noe (No-ay) works.  Alex loves the days when Mister Noe is in.  After he washed up, he left me standing in the cubby area without so much as a "By your leave." 

I didn't have to look too hard for him when I re-entered the classroom in order to leave.    He was where Noe was, building with Magna-blocks.

"Bye Gorgeous!" I called.

"Yeah. Bye" he muttered.

Oh, OK.  I get it. You're with Mr. Noe.  The girl has to go now. 

Dragon Rocker: Comparison Pics

Does it seem like every March I get nostalgic?  It seems that way to me.  Sometimes, it seems like March is when I pay the closest attention to the times Alex will do something he often did as a baby or, the times I'll most likely still see his baby face when he's sleeping or resting.

He still rides that dragon rocker I got him for his first Christmas.  I paid a New Parent amount in expedited shipping, because I HAD to have it for his first Christmas.  Had I known that he would use it for more than four years, I might not have gone that crazy.

Here's a comparison shot of his relative size against the rocker. 

And the previous years:



At once, it seems like it was yesterday, but also so many, many years ago. 
I'm very glad I chose to make the most of this time at home with him, even if he won't remember most of it.  I know I will.

Is it March Yet? Is it March Yet?

I made the mistake of telling Alex that today is March 1. He gasped and looked up from his breakfast: "So my birthday is tomorrow????"

Oh dear. We need to work on calendars and dates n' stuff I think.

Only 27 more days of this to go!!!

Thursday, March 1

A Gracious Host - Kinda

Robert is back in town! We made plans to meet him at his hotel at 10 AM this morning and then set out for The Cloisters (a/k/a "The Castle Museum").  On this cold and rainy day, we traveled down to Manhattan with Daddy and hopped on a crosstown bus at 57th Street. 
We were so tired from yesterday, though, that we both overslept.  So, we wound up not being able to get a full breakfast.  More accurately, Mommy didn't get her coffee.  At Robert's hotel, we stopped for breakfast.  Thankfully, Robert seemed hungry too.  (At least he ordered a full breakfast.)

The ride on the A train was long, but the walk from the subway to the museum was even longer.  (Mental note: the M4 goes straight to the museum and stops right at the exit of the subway.)  Alex was still trooper.   He didn't complain once while we all trudged up the hills and more hills and still yet more hills. See, the Inwood Hills/Fort Tryon areas are two of Manhattan's completely undeveloped areas.  And one walk through Fort Tryon park will tell you why.  The place is loaded with dense Fordham Gneiss and it's practically a vertical climb up.   The expense of building there wouldn't have been worth it until the 20th century and, by then, the history was too lengthy to destroy.

At long last, we reached the Cloisters museum.  Alex was his usual patient self. (Cough, cough..)  Robert did his best to view the exhibits quickly, but this time, Alex was anxious to have Robert's attention.  "Come onnnnnn, Robert!" he whined several times.  Poor Robert.  He might be best off saving the museums he's not that interested in for the days he'll be spending with me and Alex.

The Cloisters is a small museum, though.  We were done with the place by a quarter to one. I'd already planned to travel to the Dyckman Farmhouse in Inwood if it wasn't raining too heavily.  Unfortunately, they hadn't mentioned on the website that the place has "Winter Hours" (open only on Fridays and Saturdays.)  So there the three of us were in Inwood with nothing to do - and it was lunchtime.  The only place we could find was McDonald's.  A regrouping resulted in a plan to travel to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  

Back on the A train to 110th! (With one transfer to a local train).  Then a trudge through now windy rain to Amsterdam Avenue.   It was on this walk that Alex would learn that Robert doesn't use a gun in his work as a Metropolitan Police Officer.    "No gun??" Alex asked in a tone of incredulity. "What do you use?"  When we told him that he uses a nightstick, Alex offered a solution.  "An American police officer can work for you.  They have guns."  He didn't hear that part in which Robert said that in 13 years as a police officer in Greater London, he'd used his stick only once and never found himself in a situation in which he thought "I wish I had a gun right now."  Hmmmm...maybe Alex needs to be a little bit older for that sort of lesson.

But on to St. John the Divine: I'd never been to the Cathedral before.  I now want to know more about it and how and why it was built.  I mean, I knew it was an Episcopal Church, but it's huge!! Quite possibly bigger than Saint Patrick's.  The grounds are definitely bigger than those of St. Pat's.   And it's just gorgeous inside. A main cathedral. Tons of small inner chapels.  A baptistry.  Too much to list here.

The main exhibit was one on fresh water and the current water crisis the globe is facing.  Robert toured around while Alex and I waited in the choir pews.  I wanted Alex to rest there. He wanted to play train conductor.  Guess who won?

Aaaalllll aboard!! Next stop, Larchmont!

Collecting tickets down the row of seats.



Mommy's plans for Alex's rest time/nap time never seem to go her way do they?  I'll remember these days when he's 20 and sleeps 14 hours a day again.

Too bad he didn't rest.  He didn't get a chance to see this cool statue of Saint Boniface in a chapel dedicated to him:



And Mommy didn't get to inspect this baptistry more closely.  It was donated by the descendants of Peter Stuyvesant in the 1920s. 

Though not visible in this photo, there are supposedly tulips and windmills carved into it as an homage to the Dutch heritage of New York City.

And, just how liberal is the Episcopalian Church these days?  Just in case you missed that part about the Cathedral hosting art exhibits about the fresh water crisis and the unequal distribution of this precious resource, there was this, carved into one of the frames surrounding the altar area.

The figures there are (fr. l to r), Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert Einstein, Susan B. Anthony and Mohandas K. Gandhi.   Icons of peace, equality and modern learning.

Yeah, I'd say they've drawn their line in the sand, especially since this newly carved figure follows a line of icons like Lincoln, Washington, Shakespeare, Gallileo and Columbus.  Other than Shakespeare, there's a lot of Enlightment stuff going on there, yes?   Maybe it's just me.

We had already planned to have dinner with Daddy.  So, we got on an M4 bus and rode it all the way to 59th.  By now, the wind was bitter cold and damp.  The walk east was uncomfortable. Worse still was that we had to reach Third Avenue to find a selection of restaurants.

We'd worked up such an appetite that even Alex ate his dinner and half of the ice cream I ordered for him.  Dinner!! Alex hasn't eaten dinner in quite some time.  Between the Cloisters and St. John the Divine, perhaps there was some influence from on high? 

Ice Cream! Yum!

 We got a late train home - an 8:40!! And it was crowded, so poor Alex had to sit on Daddy's bag as a seat.  There was little to no trouble getting him to bed.

Robert leaves New York on Friday morning for Washington, DC. Unfortnately, we have Preschool Ecology tomorrow and it doesn't end until 2.  So, we said our goodbyes at Grand Central.

Until next time Robert!!

Clownin' Around in Vanderbilt Hall

Mommy was hungry.  They'd had a busy afternoon at Central Park, playing in the playgrounds and walking around talking to doggies.  It was time for dinner! Mommy took Alex straight to Grand Central so that they could leave as soon as they finished eating.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus had other ideas...

For the past two years, the circus has not been able to perform at its usual NYC haunt of Madison Square Garden.  They'd instead booked some time in two NJ arenas and the Nassau Colliseum.  In order to let New Yorkers know that they were still around, they had an exhibit in Vanderbilt Hall of Grand Central Station.  

It included clown jackets and a green screen photo.  Props and everything!

Green screened! 
We wore the jackets. Alex sat on a stationary unicycle

It included popcorn and 18 dollar plastic Dragon Swords!  (%$#%$ing Ringling Brothers...)  It included Elephant Art and an entry form to win one!  It included souvenirs and fortune cookies and plastic clown noses!  ("Dragons" - from, this year, the Year of the Dragon)

It even included a clown show.  Right there in Grand Central Terminal. This charming photo was taken after the show with Arthur Adventure and his sidekicks, Mike and Dan (pictured).

Alex and Dan the Clown

So, Alex learned a lesson about not wanting to leave playgrounds.  He sure did!!  Do it - and there will be clowns!!

Well, sometimes there will be.

Earning a Trip to the Pyramids

Alex has been operating under a new reward system.  He now gets stars for having listened to Mommy or paying attention to all the rules in class or doing his homework.  And there are no toys to be won in this reward system.   There are only treats and adventures.   At the end of last week, Alex won 30 stars.  Ten percent of them are to be banked, but he can spend the remaining stars as he wishes.  He wished to spend 20 stars on an adventure.

Mommy had her midterm this morning.  There was no way she felt like dashing back to Alex's music class right after school.  (We are not taking that class again. Too bad. I liked the program, but it MUST be held earlier in the day for preschoolers.  Sigh.) So, she offered a choice to Alex.  We could go to Music School, and if we did, he could have Alex time after we got home.  We could stay in Manhattan, but he had to take a half hour Rest Time if we did that.  Or we could go straight home and he could nap and wind up with a colored in Angry Bird and three more stars. 

He knows that Central Park is just a few blocks away from school. What do you think he chose?

Yeah.  That.

Our first playground wasn't so intriguing to him. It was pretty and rustic and all, but it had no fun equipment.  I promised him that another was just down the walkway.    It was a smaller version of the Ancient Playground; the one located across the Traverse from the Ancient Egyptian exhibit of the Met. (And which you can see from the glass walls of the cafe and the Temple of Dendur.)

Pyramids! Temples! Sand!! He was in his glory.

That pyramid had a ladder going up to the top from inside the tunnel.  Alex was, at first, afraid to climb down the ladder.  When some older boys overheard me encouraging him to try it, one of them offered to show him how.  After that, Alex cautiously tried it and surprised himself with the result.  He became ALL about his new skill then!

After having jumped from a low rung

Slowly climbing down

 

SO much fun was had. 

Mommy felt badly about telling Alex that they had to leave briefly to go find a rest room.  She promised with all of her heart that he could come back to the playground if he liked.   On the walk to the restroom, we spotted a pretty special squirrel. 

He was red.

 But after we'd used the bathroom, Alex wanted to keep walking.  We did until we found another playground.  (This one less taxing on Mommy. Yay!)    It had a nice slide and climbing pipe frame and a cool sand pit.  Alex and Mommy stopped to see the sand pit and Alex joined in playing with two younger boys, one of whom nicely offered to share his sand digging toys with Alex.   That boy's name was Carson and he was with his grandma Ronni. Carson was only a month past two, but so incredibly articulate.  He was able to ask Alex his name, remember it and even say goodbye to Alex in the right context. 

It was soon 4:30 and turning cold.  Mommy told Alex that we had to leave and he was happy about it in the least. (Lots of crying. So much for "Rest Time" doing the work of a nap.)  But there was one more event to brighten Alex's day.  We didn't know it when we got on the bus headed for Grand Central, but we were going to the circus that day...

From Preschool to College, or is it Both?

This will be a month of firsts for Alex and Mommy.  It will be Alex's first time in a preschool setting with a full day's attendance.  It will be Mommy's first time back in a college class in a very long time.

And this month will bring the first time the two of us have been apart for any length of time on a regular basis.

I wonder which one of us will take it harder? 

(Actually, I don't wonder that at all.)