best snow day of all time

the last two weeks brought valentine's day, a week-long winter break for the girls, a busy week back to school and the best snow day in rich family history. school was cancelled, again, but this time even chip stayed home. we tromped to the park as the snow clouds and the sun took turns filling the sky, went sledding on plastic garbage sacks (hilarious and ridiculously fun), built snowmen and ice forts and made our way home with all three children frozen and sobbing. the next morning we made our way back to the park, armed with a real sled from a generous (pitying?) neighbor and more layers of random clothing.

chip's nine-foot snowman had been knocked down during the night, so he went to rebuilding, adding a wife and child while he was at it. aunt and uncle m + m (who, awesomely, live just one block away) joined us in the sledding and crashing and walking and building and snow-angeling. we ran into friends and we loved our park and our city and the snow. winter didn't seem so bad, in fact, it seemed magically perfect and everything i thought it should be as a child. i was glad to be in brooklyn. and to have a ton of delicious black bean brownies to snack on when we got home. protein intake via a brownie is pretty magical too.

carefree

my 50mm lens broke. then one phone died while the other disappeared. two days later a water balloon burst all over (and killed) my one-month-old laptop. a water balloon. inside my home. i can really only blame myself, but still, there were a few days these past two weeks where i was pretty sure that life was against me. 

then the crisp fall wind came and blew in the anniversary of our wedding. nine years. (high-five, chip). last tuesday rolled around, chip surprise-took the day off work and pushed me out of the door to have a day of wandering all to myself. the city was wonderful and strange without my squad. i hardly knew what to do or how to interact with the city without kids.. or at the very least without the threat of an outrageous babysitting bill or looming pick-up time. but, i eventually figured it out. i wandered in soho and central park, i saw a movie at 5pm at the Paris (i was the youngest by 35 years, at least. maybe my favorite NY movie viewing experience to date.), i wandered down 5th avenue and grew even firmer in my deep love of brooklyn. chip and i met at balthazar for dinner, wandered to the east village for ice cream and another movie, then took a cab to the west village to stay the night at the jane*. all by ourselves. no kids calling our names in the night or "whispering" in our faces in the morning. it was a first ever and it was nice. and chip did it all. (big-time high-five, chip). the next morning i watched the hudson from our window and after leaving the hotel, chip took off to work while i slowly wandered home.

for a life that has seemed anything but carefree lately, it was the perfect gift. the break from everything, the time alone with chip and the happy reunion with the kids.. just right. 

and now we are back. back to schedules and volunteering and lunch-packing and scrambling to find the missing shoe and fundraising and playing and eating and meetings and eating (charlie is beastly hungry all the time lately) and trying our best to wrap it all up in pajamas, brushed teeth and a cup full of water before 8pm every night.. and i'm trying my best to approach all we have going on with the same happy attitude i approached my day of wandering. 

so it seemed right that when reuniting with my lonely sewing machine i turn to one of my favorite japanese craft books newly translated into english (hooray!); carefree clothes for girls. the japanese version made me want to dye the girls' hair red and move to the country, and the new english version does the same.. but since that doesn't make any sense (yet) i'm happy that it also makes me want to sew up a ton of these adorable clothes for eve and ruth's life in the city.

i skipped on the lovely handwork the book instructs for the apron (i get impatient for a final product when i haven't sewn in awhile.. but really, the detailed handwork in the book is insanely charming). and i went for strips of bias tape along the pant leg rather than the wide lace in the instructions- no lace on hand and i find stripes+cropped pant+little girl to be an irresistible combination (and who really has the power to resist the sailor trend, especially after just lodging in the "captain's quarters" at a hotel that was originally built to lodge sailors in port and was actually home to the survivors of the titanic while that sad mess was sorted out? not me). i love it. simple and darling and so easy to sew. eve's feelings about the outfit? she can put "special secret and even super secret messages and things in the gigantic pocket without anyone knowing" all while practicing moves for ballet class, so she's a fan. even ruth, while in her cave (laundry hamper turned on its side with blanket over it), rotating between her bat costume and skirted lime green swimsuit and shouting "pumpkin pie!" every thirty seconds gives it a very enthusiastic thumbs up. so, even with 80% of technology dead in our home, and charlie throwing everything he can find to the ground, it isn't so hard to feel carefree with images of life on the sea, super secret messages and pumpkin pie on the brain. 

* for those who follow the link to the jane, know that chip didn't surprise me with a tiny room with bunk beds (although that would have been ridiculous and hysterical.. and a revisit to our past- on a maiden scouting voyage to new york nearly 9 years ago we visited the jane when it was gritty and cheap and a friend was lodging in one of those tiny tiny rooms until he found an apartment).. we stayed in one of the captain's rooms which was cool and fun, but not without some mysterious weirdness.. 

a sprinkler suit

watching those sesame street kids play on their sad playgrounds always puzzled me. as a girl growing up on acres of land in northern california, it just didn't make sense. there had to be some kind of joke that i just wasn't getting, because i didn't believe it.. a couple lousy swings, a handball wall, maybe a sand pit, some sprinklers and a sad set of monkey bars and i was supposed to be convinced that it was real? that anyone would ever do that to a kid; build a playground on blacktop without any kind of grass anywhere? it wasn't real, but if it was, i felt sorry and confused for those kids. 

today i watch my children play on those playgrounds. i watch them run on the blacktop and swing on the swings and stomp their feet in frustration at not being able to get the monkey bars right. those kids i pitied are now my own and those sad playgrounds i didn't believe in are theirs. they are theirs and they are amazing. the girls will run and charlie will walk, so slowly and carefully, all over that black rubber matting and asphalt for hours. every season of the year we are there, never noticing or thinking about the missing grass. we run,we draw with chalk, we blow bubbles and swing, slide and chase. but during the summer, while charlie searches for the nearest ball, the girls are concerned with one thing on their lovely little playground; the water. no matter what they are wearing, eve and ruth drench themselves in the geysers that pop up when the weather turns hot. more often than not, on those summer days we spend in brooklyn, the girls walk home, leaving a trail of little puddles behind them.

for those days of sprinkler bliss, a sprinkler suit was made. now that the very last day of our summer vacation is here it seems a little late to be sharing this, something made back in june, but here it is anyway. eve and ruth both balked when i tried to present it as a swim suit. "but it's just a shirt and underwear!" they cried. they were right, and we have used each piece separately as such, but when the two pieces are put together it becomes eve's "sprinkler suit", a term they were both willing to fully embrace (ruth didn't want one for herself unless it had a big hole in the back of it and neither of us were fans of the prototypes i came up with.. next summer). with her sprinkler suit on eve can run and play in the water and dry off in record time and i can watch as she scootches and spins on the ground and throws her little body around without once thinking about how much damage she is doing to her suit or clothes. after all, it is a sprinkler suit, and sprinkler suits are made for summer and all that comes with it on these new york playgrounds we happily call our own. 

..

also, this is my favorite sesame street song. ever. there are funnier and cleverer songs, which are awesome, but this was my favorite as a child and is even more so now that the girls request to watch it over and over and charlie rocks along to the beat. 

harvey

unquestionably, the best part of living in this city is the people we are fortunate enough to call our friends. everyday we walk out our doors and find ourselves surrounded by some serious talent. add kindness, fun, smarts, and vision to that talent and you have some really amazing people. and amazing people do amazing things. amazing things like launch their own perfect clothing line. harvey faircloth. it has been so exciting to watch harvey come to life, to cheer from the sidelines as katie, abby and mara worked and planned and worked. when you visit their website and think to yourselves "really?" believe me when i tell you, yes. they really are that fun and great. both the girls and the clothes. welcome, harvey faircloth! i am so glad to have you around.  

monday evening

after eight years in new york it finally happened. we got mugged. it was different than i imagined. i never imagined it happening in the daylight. i never imagined a mugger in his 40s. and i never imagined it happening while my kids played games around our feet.

i stared at his painted-on beard, at the upper lip filling the gaps where his teeth should have been, at his long brown coat, at the half smoked cigarette in his left hand as his right held the partially concealed revolver. he needed money. he had kids. he loved kids. our kids were beautiful. he didn't want to hurt them. he didn't want to shoot us. but he had $900 rent due. he needed $900. he wouldn't go to a shelter. he wouldn't put his kids on the street. he needed $900. please. he didn't want to kill our kids. he loves kids. 

i searched my pockets. i had $0.75, maybe $0.80. i had a $20 watch. i took it off and handed it over. he didn't want change. he needed $900. what were we going to do for him? he had no choice. i fished some more. another quarter. chip shifted charlie and pulled out his wallet. i stared at that beard. was it shoe polish? was it a disguise or just to look good? was that gun real? it looked too small to be real. i was calm. i calmly told him to chill out. but i was also irritated, really irritated. chip handed over the wallet, empty of cash, full of credit cards and id's. i wanted the id. he would mail it to us. i wanted to get it now, i didn't think he didn't need my husband's license. he'd put it in the mail. i persisted. he raised his voice. don't push it, lady. i didn't. my hands went up. he told us to go to our apartment. "go inside mama." he didn't want to hurt no one. he just wanted to go. we just wanted it to be over. it finally was. 

i went inside to cancel credit cards. chip pulled out his phone to call 911. "no! you only call 911 if there's an emergency!" eve cried. they had no idea what had just happened as they giggled and played and we talked with the man in the doorway.

i always imagined being scared, too scared to scream, too scared to think. but i wasn't. strangely, i was not scared at all, only irritated. maybe because chip was at my side or maybe because the man kept shifting his body so the girls wouldn't see the gun. maybe because he seemed affected, almost tortured when he first saw eve's face. maybe i believed him. or maybe i've been in new york long enough. or maybe i just couldn't believe what was happening, that his man was mugging a family of five, my family of five. 

police came, chip went to the precinct, detectives were assigned. i dreamt about him all night and awoke remembering every detail of his face. i left to the suburbs for a happily pre-planned overnight stay. chip got a call at work. a kind stranger found his wallet and called his credit card companies to contact him. everything was there, except the metro card and his driver's license. maybe the mugger put it in the mail after all. or maybe he took it out to spite me. . . who knows. 

how's that for heavy fare? but, after the many many talks with the girls about the choices we make, taking responsibility for those choices and controlling our emotions, we're back to our usual business. . . like making a scarf in commemoration of our group mugging experience. one four inch wide strip cut from black and white striped knit and wrapped around neck. not one stitch of sewing. i'm certain i made this in less time than the mugging lasted. . and don't worry, the girls don't know what this is "in memory of," that's my little secret. . .

a great day

today ruthie turned three. 

today molly, my brand new and beautiful niece, lived her first full day of life.

today i couldn't stop smiling as i thought of the cheers, the honking and the shouting in the streets that kept me up all last night.

this was a really great day.  

finally

for the past eight years the saturday before halloween has meant one thing and one thing only: the park slope ward chili/pie cook off. four times i have entered my favorite key lime pie and four times i've walked away empty-handed. but not this year, this year it finally happened. i took in my pie and walked away from the evening and the church with this:

 

it's a little embarrassing and a lot ridiculous, but it feels really good to have this apron. clearly, winning is fun and feeds my carefully repressed competitiveness, but the best part is that now i can move on. i can let go of the crazy compulsion i felt to keep shoving this pie in the judges' faces year after year after year. it has gotten it's shout-out and now i am free to make a different pie, or no pie at all. maybe i can figure out a good chili recipe, or maybe not and instead spend all my energy in the always last-minute costume making of the day. (bats this year, and they're so cute).

i am kicking myself for not getting a picture of the pies before they were consumed. sitting among the twenty-two other entries, my pie was simple and lovely, but the pie that really needed documenting was an apple pie, the upper crust of which was decorated with a pie-crust silhouette of joseph smith. oh, i loved it. . .

even though i am picture-less know that this has always been a delicious and easy pie, and now it's a prize-winner. so, make it and be happy. 

Key Lime Pie

6 large egg yolks

6 tsp grated lime zest

whisk yolks and zest until greenish. then add:

1.5 can sweetened condensed milk

mix. then add:

3/4 c fresh lime juice, strained

mix and let stand at room temperature to thicken, usually just a few minutes. 

pour into 9" graham cracker crust (you can buy to make it easier on yourself, but homemade is always better)

bake at 325 for 15-18 minutes, until center is set.

cool completely and top with fresh, homemade whipped cream. garnish with lime zest or sugared, super thin lime slices. 

fashion show

it's strange being a parent before a performance. i tried not to, but waiting for the show to start i couldn't stop myself from getting nervous. how was eve doing backstage? will all that sugar from the cupcakes, cookies and starbursts hit the bloodstream at the exact moment she's supposed to walk on? will she freak out? will she get overwhelmed with all the cameras and people and bright lights? is she going to keep the raincoat on? will all the pep talks make any difference? is she going to have a good time? nervous nervous, pretend like i'm fine, stare at the clock, wait wait. and then, finally, it starts. the kids make their way out one by one and they are amazing. eve is third (fourth?) in line and comes out with the greatest smile and confident little walk. halfway down the catwalk she spots us, gives a big wave (crowd loves it- such a nice crowd), gets to the end, turns around and smiles all the way back. done and everyone is happy. we sneak out through the masses, find eve with her fellow models, give hugs and praise galore, take more pictures, change and leave parsons. we make our way to the subway, ruth plays peek-a-boo with strangers while eve cuddles up and falls dead asleep against my belly.

esther, parsons design student, getting eve ready to go for rehearsal

rehearsal

the real thing

mish-mash of lately

happy may day!

it is official, spring is here and summer is right around the corner. i know because last week i got the very beginnings of what is, three years running, my summer trademark: massive saltwater sandal tan. feels good. i also have the beginnings of a nice farmer's tan which doesn't feel so good but until i start remembering my sunblock is also kind of inevitable. does anyone else have arms that tan at a rate five times faster than the rest of their body?. . . but, i can't complain when i am able to spend hours of my day sitting on a playground bench surrounded by great friends watching the kids run and play. new york in spring is amazing. if you've never been, come at this time. everyone and everything is emerging from their winter gloom and reveling in the glory of renewal.

and, i'm 29. (i know. only 29 and almost three kids- yikes.) tuesday was my birthday and with great friends all around, a brother and sister-in-law in town (who woke up to make me crepes in the morning!), and time alone with chip, it was a really great day. chip and i went to freemans on the lower east side and other than the somewhat irrational fear that one of the taxidermied animals was going to fall on me and cause serious bodily harm (i was most concerned about my eyes), the place was really great. watching the parade of hipsters walk down the alley to the restaurant was entertaining and, once, inspiring. i love the lower east side. after dinner chip and i made our way uptown in a cab, a rare treat for us- we're cheap like that, to see macbeth. such an intense and gruesome production. not going to help my creepy dreams at all. the art direction was beautifully modern and the acting was stunning. . . i always wonder whether my opinions are completely skewed because i'm just so happy to be kid-free for a night. i might consider anything a work of genius because i don't have two little girls shouting "i'm never playing with you again!" or "more didi boots! i want food! no, mean mommy!" at me every thirty seconds. but this time i'm certain it was the production and not the euphoria of being away that won me over.

here's yesterday photo of baby boy, who, it turns out, is not breech at all! good baby. i'm hopeful this is the last time we need an ultrasound with this baby. i'm tired of hospitals.

our may day will be filled with joy school for eve, some grocery shopping (or maybe napping instead?) and folding of the laundry neglected yesterday while at the hospital and then preparing for last night's book club i hosted. we read crossing to safety by wallace stegner. one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors. i love his depiction of relationships in all their quiet tragedy and glory. it was so great to be in my home, kids in bed and surrounded by good people and good discussion.

++ update: my hero brother-in-law and sister-in-law who live in manhattan just swooped in and took my children for the afternoon/evening. looks like i'll be getting that nap afterall, once i waste more of my time watching the most recent episode of the hills. i already stayed up until 2am last night catching up on the bachelor. gross reality tv confessions. . .

the third

this pregnancy has been so different from the two girls in so many ways. mostly in ways i'm not loving. a lot more worry, a lot more discomfort (the separating pelvis of this week has been really cool), some serious grumpiness, weird vivid dreams involving violence, espionage, world domination and ricky schroeder and tossed in the mix these last two weeks; a good amount of possibly offensive commentary from neighbors and strangers who have apparently just now noticed that i am, in fact, pregnant with the third child.

here are two gems.

the most common- if not exact wording, the same sentiment:

"you just don't know when to quit!"

apparently not.

and my personal favorite comes from upstairs neighbor (postal worker by day, swing and electric slide dance instructor by night. not kidding.):

"tell chip to keep up the good work!"

consider him told, mr. jackson.