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.)