Spring Break - Part 3

Our final adventure for Spring Break was a quick trip to New York City. In retrospect it was perfect. At the time it was an interesting combination of fun and the sometimes harsh realities of being a parent.

Being the clever and frugal person that I am I decided we should take the Bolt Bus from Philadelphia to New York City. It only costs $10. We would avoid tolls, traffic, and the hassle and cost of parking in the city. The bus stop in Philadelphia is less than a mile from our house and the stop in NYC was less than a mile from our hotel. Brilliant....until you consider that we, of course, were running late on Monday morning and had to take a cab to the bus stop--double the cost of the trip. Plus it was raining, both in Philadelphia and New York City, which makes a mile walk on either end with two kids seem rather on the long side. Then our window on the bus was covered with an advertisement. When you look out one of those windows it is like looking at the world in pixels. The rush of the morning, the pixelated world, a very full stomach and the smell of a bus got to Jane and she puked all over herself and me before we were even out of Philadelphia. Fortunately, my mom reflexes kicked in and I caught the first dose in my hand, but then it just kept coming. Josh was frantically emptying snacks out of ziplock bags to pass to me and I was trying to act like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. We only had a few wipes in the diaper bag since we are out of the diaper stage. We used every last one and half a bottle of magic soap to clean up as best we could. Of course the bathroom in the bus didn’t have any paper towels or even water with which to wash our hands. At that point all I could do was pray for my little Jane. A few minutes later the fun continued, but this time I was prepared with a ziplock bag and we caught every little bit. When Jane finally dozed off in my arms, I was ever so thankful.

Central Park

Relieved to be off the bus, we started walking the streets of New York City. First Impression: they have really nice sidewalks in New York City. Pushing a stroller in Philadelphia is like navigating an obstacle course. The sidewalks in New York are nice and wide and even. Pushing a stroller isn’t a bad way of getting around there either because people get out of your way. I think they are afraid of children! Our first item of business was to stop and get Jane a new jacket. It was rainy and cold outside and her jacket had been the worst casualty of the unfortunate bus incident, so we introduced Josh to the world of H&M (H&M is kind of like a fashion conscious Old Navy for those Westerners that may not know). Once again my plan to save money by taking the bus, didn’t save us money after all. Jane did get a cute jacket out of it, however, so it wasn’t all bad. Then it was on to the hotel.

Josh had been in charge of getting a hotel while I did the transportation. Fortunately for all of us, he did a much better job than I. Our hotel was lovely and we got it for a great price. After the morning we had had I needed to walk into a lovely hotel. I washed Jane’s jacket out in the granite sink with olive oil and oatmeal soap. We had a few snacks and then we went out on the town. We walked up through Grand Central Station and then over to 5^th Avenue to look at all the fancy schmancy stores. I took the girls (and a reluctant Josh) into the American Girl Store. Kate & Jane ran around looking at each doll for about 10 seconds saying, “Dolly! Dolly! Dolly!” Much to Josh’s relief we left with only a catalog for the girls to look at as we walked. Some day we will be back there, but not this day.

They Stole Our Statue!

Our next stop was the FAO Schwartz store. Jane stole the show in there. That little girl loves stuffed animals. She walked from display to display in the store, picking up each animal, hugging it close and saying, “Oh, giraffe!” or “Oh, birdie!” or, her personal favorite, “Oh, PANDA!” I received more comments on how cute my daughter was than I ever have before. I am surprised they didn’t ask us to leave so people would start looking at the toys again.

At this point Josh was fading fast so we went to a fun burger place to have hamburgers, french fries, and shakes which is the ultimate in fine dining as far as Kate is concerned.

Feeling refreshed we walked back down 5^th Avenue. We went three feet into the Lacoste store, decided we didn’t belong in there with a double stroller and walked back out. It was window shopping from then on. But we had fun walking and singing in the rain. Kate and Jane were sitting side by side in the stroller under the rain cover laughing and singing together the whole time. It was pretty fun to listen to.

The whole reason for this New York trip was that a few months ago I purchased tickets to see Mary Poppins on Broadway. Kate loves Mary Poppins. She knows every song from the movie. I simply couldn’t resist a great deal on tickets. So, on Monday night Kate and I got all dressed up and walked over to Broadway to see the show. She looked so cute in her dark blue dress coat with a big white bow in her hair. We blew a kiss to Dad and Jane who were headed out on an adventure of their own and walked hand in hand into the fancy theater. As the lights dimmed and the music began Kate looked over at me with her big, wide, excited blue eyes and a huge smile. I don’t know if she will remember that night, but I will never forget it! She sat on the edge of her booster seat and drank in the entire performance. She couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel to tell her Dad and Jane that Mary Poppins had flown right over our heads!

This is the picture I took of the theater as I was dashing down Broadway to our bus stop.

I, unfortunately, forgot the camera the night before!

After a good night sleep we were ready for more adventures. We didn’t have a lot of time before we had to catch the bus again, but we set up a pretty ambitious plan for the morning. It isn’t every day you are in New York City after all. We walked up to Dylan’s Candy Shop--heaven for any candy lover--and then over through central park. The sun was shining and the air was clear and we were loving life! Then we headed down to pick up lunch at a Zagat rated food cart our friends told us about. This is when things started to unravel. We were waiting for our food and realized we were behind schedule. We decided to send Josh back to check out of the hotel while the girls and I got the food. Then we would meet up in Times Square on our way to the bus stop. Note for future tourists: if you are in a hurry don’t walk through Times Square with a double stroller. Anyway, Josh headed off and before he was even out of sight Jane started doing her “potty dance.” Suddenly I remembered why we were ALL going back to the hotel before heading to the bus. Five minutes later we were still waiting for our lunch and Jane was in tears because she had to go potty so badly. I didn’t know where I was, where I was going, or how to take care of my child. The chaos in my mind made me feel like crying as well. Then I remembered I was the MAMA and I had to handle this. The food came. We dashed across the street to the Hilton and used the potty in their Lobby. As we were leaving the Hilton, I called Josh and he was just leaving our hotel. The race was on! We were coming from one direction, he from another and both of had a pretty impressive walk ahead. I’m not sure I have ever pushed that stroller so fast. I think I brought on a little sidewalk rage in a few people as I wove through pedestrian traffic in Times Square and on the busy city streets with my double wide load. All I can say is, it is a miracle that we caught our bus.

Just as I sat down on the bus and took a deep breath Jane said she had to go potty again. The whole bus had been waiting for us as we loaded our luggage and got ourselves settled. The last thing I wanted to do was get up to take my girl potty, and besides, we had just gone. Note to future mothers: If your daughter tells you she needs to go potty, take her. I, unwisely said, “Jane, Jane we just went potty. You are okay.” She smiled and said, “okay.” Then a few minutes later, after she had told me again and again I had quieted her, I felt a touch of warm on my leg, the same pants that had been puked on the day before. I passed Jane to Josh and he dashed with her to the potty, obviously too late. Again, I found myself doing disaster clean up on the bus trying not to attract attention to myself. Yes, Jane also puked on the way home, but we were prepared this time. Let me just say that next time the Woodford family will not be saving money by taking the bus to New York City (much to the satisfaction of the Bolt Bus Company and their customers, I might add).

So, that was our New York City trip. The glossy version is that it was wonderful. We had a grand time. The real version is that sometimes being a parent is the pits! Fortunately for all of us, the memories are getting glossier by the day.

Kate's Cold Prickly from Mommy School (as opposed to a Warm Fuzzy, of course)

Josh went back to school Wednesday. Fortunately, I had so much to do with preparation for Mommy School, grocery shopping, unpacking, and cleaning up that the transition wasn’t as hard as it could have been. We’ll see how this next week goes.

We are enjoying incredible Spring weather here in Philly. The temperatures have been near 70 every day this week and we are feeling a surge of energy. It became obvious this week that the Woodfords are partially Solar Powered. We ran 6 miles together on Thursday just because we were loving the sunshine so much. We have had picnics in the park and several trips to the playground. Kate has made sure we are all wearing short sleeves at every possible moment because as she puts it, “It is Spring outside!”