Rubbing butts with the rich and famous

I pushed Emmett too hard today, I think. It all started with the trip to get bagels. He took about an hour-and-twenty minute nap when I finally got him down, but things were a little off. As soon as he woke, I was all ready to go with a change of clothes, bags packed, etc. We headed out with the goal of checking out art at the Met which called for two transfers no matter how we swung it. I chose us a route that would take us by Grand Central Station and we exited there to check it out as neither Emmett nor I had seen it before. I took some pictures while there (among others) but can't find the cord for the camera so I might have to wait until we return to add pictures. We got back on the train and reached the museum just as Emmett remembered that he hadn't eaten for a while---which reminds me that I had brought a lot of stuff: a cooler with two cold beers to keep two bags of breast milk cold, the ergo, the stroller, and the typical bag of diapers, etc....all of which I had to haul (with Emmett often in stroller) up and down each flight of stairs we reached. Fun.

I fed Emmett in the park before we headed into the museum. The first bag had melted almost entirely and Emmett paused a little while he ate but didn't seem to get ice cream headaches or anything. We went into the museum with Emmett in the stroller. I changed him up a few minutes in to the Ergo and he seemed genuinely interested in the armor section, especially a couple of shiny, metal, face-like helmets. It didn't hold his interest long, though and I had about 45 minutes through the museum with him asleep. I was deep into the impressionists by the time he woke and it didn't take long until he had had enough. I knew he needed to be changed but unfortunately we were on the second floor (where a floor in this museum equals about 4 floors worth of stairs) and the only men's restroom with a changing table was on the first. It is worth noting here that should one ever want to find a place where a baby's cry seems extraordinarily loud, I am quite sure a museum ranks behind only libraries and classical guitar concerts. So, with this loudly crying baby I the one-floor elevator would not come therefore I decided to negotiate the stairs with Emmett screaming and writhing in my arms and all of the stuff in the stroller. My method was simple: hold on to one handle, kick the stroller so it would fall one stair, step down, repeat. I had made it down one normal-size flight (three to go) when a kind woman offered help as she was going down too. She said something along the lines of "please let help you. I could take the stroller...or the baby??" where both she and I could see that Emmett, even though he was very upset, was the easier cargo to carry down three flights of stairs. This left me with a dilemma, which caused a pause, which she filled with "I am a grandmother," which left both of us wondering in that pause if this was a helpful statement or not with her surely trying to imply that she had had kids and had taken sufficient care of said children that some survived unscathed enough to bear offspring, with the side implication that a grandmother is not going to run off with your child, however leaving open the question of should she be carrying an infant downstairs. So what is a new father to do in this situation? Emmett had another first today!!! The first trip down a flight of steps in the arms of a complete stranger. Andrea is going to love that one.

The changing table was a joke and I would have been better off just changing him on the stroller in the second floor bathroom. If you took a two-foot square table and then cut in half from corner to corner and put the remaining triangular table into a corner, you would have the Met's "changing table." We took care of business, though, and he was much happier. I learned that Emmett really likes modern art, particularly artists who paint large canvases in only one or two colors. He is all over that.

Part of the museum trouble was that emmett was hungry again. The second milk package was cold so I stopped into a deli to buy a large hot water (I wish I didn't have Emmett in my arms so that the guy could have just wondered why I was ordering a large hot water on a hot, hot day). I defrosted the milk in the water while sitting on someone's stoop and fed him right there. By the time we were done Andrea was out of her conference and we decided to meet at the store she wanted to visit. Not long after arriving Emmett needed to be changed with a big potty, but unfortunately for Andrea the only changing tables were in the women's bathroom (I actually made a small snide comment when trying to take Emmett into the men's restroom along the lines of "what, men don't have babies?" I am getting pretty bad). After changing Emmett we went outside to meet Luisa (out to visit family) with me having Emmett in my arms. I decided that I wanted to quickly go back into the store to look at shoes and handed Emmett off to Luisa. While I was walking away I noticed that my shirt felt wet and looking down found out that Emmett had had his first explosive potty and that it had gotten on my shirt (he has been in disposables a lot of the time here...I will explain the diaper situation later). We decided that rather than go back through the store to the bathroom we would change him right there on the sidewalk. First, let me just say that Luisa is a good sport. We did a three-person change with wipes and Emmett being handed around in order to take care of everything. In the middle of it all Emmett realized he was naked and as he had already peed twice in the outdoors in NYC, he kicked it up to three with a little getting on the kind, helpful Luisa. Very unfair.

The change finished I went back into the store to get a shirt and had an Emmett-esqe meltdown of my own as the place was crazy crowded and I couldn't find any other section of the store except marked down Versace t-shirts (was $600, now $200!!). I finally found something and was purchasing while Andrea walked in and found t-shirts that would have easily fit the bill. By that time I had already ripped the tag off of my new bright pink button-up. You win some, you lose some.

We had plans to meet Laura and Lesley for a bee art show (not sure...when we got there we saw bees but not the art). We grabbed a bite to eat at a bad good-for-you restaurant where the server proceeded to basically wake Emmett because she wanted to touch him and then while we were waiting for the check she came up to Andrea with arms out like she wanted to hold him (and we all know how we feel about strangers holding our baby). Strange.

The bee event was hopping, but Emmett was pretty beat by this time. Andrea, Laura, and Lesley went in while I waited on the sidewalk, and Andrea returned to tell me that she had just stood less than a yard away from Kirsten Dunst. Laura and Lesley were still inside so I went in to let them know that we had to take Emmett back to the hotel, and while I was going in Kirsten was making her way out through the crowded room. We both turned away from one another and K.D.'s butt rubbed against mine as we passed. That definitely makes my closest celebrity approach.

Laura and Lesley came back to the hotel with us and we had a nice night chatting it up while Emmett finally got his well-deserved sleep. Now they have gone home, Andrea is here sleeping next to me, and I have passed on too much of what has gone on in New York.