More NYC

We're finally home from our super fun New York excursion. I pretty much mastered the subway, but I'll tell you - as the temperature outside goes up, the enjoyability of taking the 6 train decreases exponentially.

A few weeks ago, I played Wii Fit at my sister's house. I hadn't ever played before and I was pretty sure I'd get on the balance board and it would say "wow, you're as fit as a 25 yr old woman!" What I did not expect it to tell me was that I have terrible balance. In fact, I was certain that it was wrong. In the intervening few weeks, however, I have learned that it may well be true. New York City helped me come to this realization, with its craggly angled sidewalks. Let's just say I didn't scrape my knees or elbows or anything, but my ankles and hips are really sore from a few trips. Fantastic. Way not to draw attention to yourself!

We had a lovely time with the girls in the big City. Elisabeth enjoyed the multitude of playgrounds immensely. She climbed, swung, spun, ran, jumped and monkey-barred. She's a hardened New Yorker, though, at the ripe old age of 4. We went to this one playground where there were just two other kids. One was a little girl, probably six or so. She and Elisabeth ended up at the top of a big slide and the little girl very nicely said "You can go first." Elisabeth was thrilled and hollered down to me "MOMMY! She said I can go first!" I asked if she said thank you (which she had) and Elisabeth slid down. The other little girl then slid down and walked up to Elisabeth and said "Do you want to be friends?" I didn't hear Elisabeth respond, so I said "Elisabeth, that was very nice - she asked you if you want to be friends! You should answer her." So Elisabeth said, "I did, Mommy. I said 'no thank you."

I was mortified. The little girl's parents looked at me with disgust. So I said "Elisabeth, that wasn't a very nice thing to say." And Elisabeth looked at me, perplexed, and said "why, Mommy? I said no thank you." I called her over to me and tried to explain, but then decided that I shouldn't make her be friends with someone. So instead I convinced her to come with me to another playground. Oh the shame.

Our New York time let us take the girls on all sorts of public transport. Bus, subway, taxi - I think that's it. Mostly, though, bus and subway. We took a taxi over to my friend Ed's house for a barbeque. Alex showed Elisabeth how to hail a cab. Wow, did that cab ride ever make me (and Doug) motion sick! The girls loved it, though. Elisabeth played with the tv in the cab that had a big map on it. Charlotte hollered "look, look, tacky (taxi), tacky!" After that motion sickness experience, we took the subway back. Astor Place station was closed, so we had to take the train 5 blocks further north and walk back. This was after a very long day - Central Park Zoo, a picnic in Central Park, then a barbeque. The walk was pretty hard on all of us. However, it was Little Miss Charlotte who seemed to take it the hardest - she had missed her nap. She whined a bit while riding in the backpack. Then we looked back and she had her arm out yelling "tacky! tacky!" I felt her pain, I wanted to hail a cab too at that point...

Here's a picture of girls piled on Mommy on the R train.