New York City

This past weekend Lizzie and I had a little adventure down in New York City.  The reason behind our trip was to attend my cousin's 50th birthday and CD release party on Saturday.  On Friday we took the 6:30 am train from the Rte 128 stop.  This meant getting up around 4:30 and leaving Rockport at 5 am.  We were joined on this trip by Nana, Uncle Caleb and Great Aunt Susan.  So we were all up early!  The train journey took us about 4 hours which thanks to a DVD player went very smoothly.  Once we were in the city we said goodbye to Susan went she hopped in a cab to stay with my cousin while the rest of us walked from Penn Station to our hotel up on Lexington and 49th.  This put Lizzie to sleep so she managed a bit of a nap which lasted through dropping off our baggage and ended right before we got to our lunch place.

After lunch we took her to The Central Park Zoo and The Children's Zoo.  Both were lots of fun and great sizes for small children.  The thing that struck me the most about the two places was Lizzie's ability to attract other children and befriend them immediately.  In one place she ended up holding hands with another little three year old girl and in the other place she quite happily played with a really adorable three year old boy.  She has such a magnetic personality.  I hope that in the future she uses it for good and not evil.  If she does end up being in the popular group in school I can only hope that she is also a good and kind person and not a mean little bitch.

We met up with the rest of my family for dinner up on the upper east side.  Lizzie absolutely adores her "cousins" (actually second cousins as her only real cousin lives in Papua New Guinea) so she had so much fun sitting at the end of the table with the kids (I was not sitting next to her).  Considering how much sleep she didn't get that day she did so well!  When it was time to crash in the hotel room she definitely crashed.  It was pretty much instantaneous!  She actually slept in between mommy and Nana while Uncle Caleb slept in the other bed.

Day two had us breakfasting at a really awesome restaurant on 50th and 2nd called Le Pain Quotidien.  We had a really wonderful breakfast made from organic ingredients with great coffee.  Afterwards we took Lizzie too Dylan's Candy Bar.  She was like a kid in a candy shop!  Ok, she was actually a kid in a candy shop and she loved every minute of it.  She just went around putting lollipops in our basket (her favorite).  I had to stop her from putting the whole store in to it!  She definitely has her mommy's sweet tooth.  After Dylan's Candy Bar Nana and Uncle Caleb tried to do some shopping but soon realized that is not very possible with a three year old.  We took her to FAO Schwartz but by then she was really tired and I think she was overwhelmed by everything there.  She wanted ALL of the stuffed animals but in the end we got her to pick one, a clown fish who we call "Nemo".

After another stroller nap we headed down to the party which was being held at a Cuban restaurant at the South Street Seaport.   The restaurant was a little awkward for the party so it was quite crowded in what little open space there was.  So we found a booth to hang out in while we waited for the music to start.  Lizzie amused herself by bouncing around and hanging out with her cousin.  My cousin and his band (The Love Handles) played music off the CD which was fun to hear.  We ended day two by going out for Mexican food and renting The Princess and the Frog in the hotel room.  Both Nana and Mommy fell asleep while watching the movie but not Lizzie! (Uncle Caleb went out on the town to look for "hot babes").

On day three we went out for a light breakfast at our favorite restaurant, checked out of the hotel then headed uptown for brunch with family and friends.  After brunch everyone went over the The Met to see the bamboo installation on the roof.  It was definitely interesting but the day was hot and I think we would have been better off going to a playground.  In fact, we managed to slip in a couple minutes at a nice playground before we needed to head back downtown to Penn Station.  Our train was scheduled to leave at 3 pm.  It was a complete nightmare getting to the train once it arrived.  A massive amount of people were trying to get down a tiny escalator to a narrow platform.  In the meantime people were still getting off the train.  Uncle Caleb ended up carrying Lizzie as they wouldn't let her go down the escalator in the stroller so we actually got separated for a little while.  Finally we managed to find seats in the same car although not all together.  Thankfully someone moved so I could sit next to Lizzie as opposed to her sitting on my lap which was a very good thing as we ended up being on the train for a total of 7 hours (as opposed to the 4 it should have been).  There was an electrical storm that downed a tree up in CT which fell on a line that controlled the track.  This wreaked a lot of havoc with our journey but we finally got home around midnight.


I definitely like visiting NYC but next time I think we'll go in the spring or fall.  It was hot, noisy, crowded and smelly.  I was thankful to be back in my little seaside town with the cool ocean breeze.  Lizzie was so amazing on the trip with relatively few meltdowns considering how little sleep she got and how many new things she was experiencing.