Sorry, that title is in the passive voice---we keep breaking things. There haven't really been any big breaks, but we have had to had an old chair fixed from me sitting on it and breaking a strap, we have superglued a couple of items around the house, and a few minor repairs here and there have had to be performed. It has made me realize that we must break a lot of stuff at home, but it is entirely different when they are your own things.
I didn't realize that I had let so much time pass since my last post here. We have been having fun and are really enjoying New York. Emmett has continued to be content with our locale, has been sleeping wonderfully (although waking around 6, which used to be 7 in SF), and we have gotten to do a bit here in the city. The weather has been extremely cooperative with most of the time being upper 70s, low 80s with low humidity, but the last two days have taken a turn toward the muggy.
I would have to say that the biggest thing that has been going on while we have been here has been the addition of words to Emmett's vocabulary. It is surprising that he is saying or attempting to say so many words we say, and that he is comprehending so much of what we say. This is a very fun age with him happy all (most, at least) of the time and actually being able to interact a bit.
The last two days he has had a bit of a fever, just as it got hot. Unfortunately we didn't bring the thermometer, but it doesn't feel too bad. The last fever he had was with tooth eruption and he has his four canine teeth coming in, so I am starting to think that he fevers a bit with teeth showing up (there has been some scientific evidence showing this happens, though they think it is only a few degrees and only the day or two before eruption...apparently they had troubles getting data because parents are the ones taking the data and they always seem to know with these studies that they are being asked to look for fever/tooth correlations).
Since we have been here we haven't been doing too much naked time with Emmett as there are rugs on the floor almost everywhere and we were trying to avoid him pottying on other people's floors. We have had a little naked time, primarily after baths in the evening, and he has taken these opportunities to poop on the floor three times. The first two were somewhat expected, but the third was three nights ago. Emmett was entertaining us by saying "baaa" (his scare noise) to wake his fake-sleeping father with me jolting awake. Emmett thought this was really funny. Actually, we took a video of near the end of the fun where Emmett is just laughing at me jolting awake. The video is sideways and I can't rotate it right now, but I am posting it because you can see where the thought takes over him that he must go potty. He starts walking behind the chair that I am sitting in and the video stops, but what happens next is Emmett emerges from behind the chair, plays the game for a little while longer, then starts pointing to behind the chair and saying something. I get up, go behind the chair, and find that Emmett has pooped behind the chair and wants to let me know what he has done. Luckily it was an easy clean up and he didn't step in it, but it was a bit of a surprise to find that there.
Emmett and I made our second trip to the Bronx Zoo and this time Andrea came along. Unfortunately it was a little rainy, but the zoo is amazing and worth the long trip there. Before our first visit, I had a negative view on zoos, but this one (and the others in NYC) is run by the Wildlife Conservation Society and had a good message and was set up very nicely. One didn't leave with the impression that the animals were unhappy and that perhaps there was a bit of value in teaching youth from cities about the value of nature.
The other bit of excitement was Angela and Scott visiting from Portland for nearly a week. It was fun having them here and they seemed excited to see Emmett (and Emmett was very excited to see Angela, especially, whom he would whine for and beg to hold him). We got to see "Hair" (no Emmett) with David Hasslehoff in the audience. What else could one ask for?
I will try to add to this later, but wanted to play a bit of catch-up. I will add some pictures below...we have not been very good about taking pictures...
I found a few more pictures on my phone. Not great pictures and just barely better than nothing. The first picture is Emmett eating his first NYC bagel
Andrea has been involved with her workshop this week, so there has been a lot of Emmett and Pa time in the Big Apple. We are settled into a good schedule now with Emmett sleeping 7-6 each night (could be later in the morning to make us happier, but not too bad) and then one nap starting at 11. The last two days he has taken a three-plus and a three-hour nap, so things are going great in that respect.
A friend here in the city had a bike I could borrow for the time we were here, so yesterday the kid and I took our maiden voyage on this side of the country. I had flown out the bike seat and our helmets counting on the fact that either I could borrow, buy, or rent a bike while we were here, so we were all prepared for riding. I was all geared up and ready to go about one-and-a-half hours into Emmett's nap (he had been sleeping two hours per nap up to this point) and spent the next nearly-two hours checking the monitor and waiting for him to wake up. I actually snuck into his room and checked that he was breathing (something I haven't done since he slept next to us at night) as I was so shocked that he had slept so long. Once awake I gave him a quick meal and we headed into Manhattan about an hour later than I thought we were going to get out of here. We crossed the Manhattan Bridge (bridges with bike lanes...how novel...why can't SF get up to speed on this?) and dropped into Chinatown with a long ride ahead of us to Central Park. We got into the city right about the start of rush hour, so traffic was pretty wild with taxis all over the place and lots of honking horns and were able to make our way to the park without incident and without Emmett complaining even though the ride took a bit longer than I had hoped. The entertainment when we got there was to be the Carousel, but I missed it when we got into the park so we just went to a grassy area and played for a while. I convinced him to get back on the bike and we finally found the carousel and took a spin. Besides my carousel ride in SF a few weeks ago, I don't know that I ever rode a carousel standing, but comparing that and this it was incredible how much faster this one spun than the one in SF. I actually thought I was going to fall over and slide off at one point. Emmett still maintained a face that seemed confused and slightly scared while on the ride (with the exception of the times he would point out the horse he was riding on to tell me it was a horse), but boy was that kid upset when it was time to walk away. It really made me wonder if the ride was worth his getting so upset when we leave, but I guess it is about time he starts learning disappointment.
I should have mentioned how excited Emmett was when he saw the bike seat and the bike all put together when he got up from his ride. His helmet was sitting out and he put it on (well, tried at least) and wanted to go for a ride rather than eat.
The ride home from the Park was equally long even though I thought I had chosen a better path. Emmett was not as happy with a long ride on the way back, but I had filled a snack cup with toastie-o's or something like that and he ate them on the front of the bike while we sped down 2nd Avenue. We crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on the way back which was crowded with lots of foot traffic, and quickly ate dinner, bathed and went to bed. It was nice to get on the bike again with Emmett, but I don't know that riding in NYC is all that fun. Sure there is the traffic thing, but actually it wasn't as bad as SF in some ways because there was so much traffic that cars couldn't really speed around us and it was easy to just take the lane and ride behind a car---breathing all of the exhaust was not pleasant at all, though. My biggest fear was pedestrians who were often crossing on red and not noticing the guy with the kid approaching fast.
Today we rode to Brooklyn's big park, Prospect Park, where we just hung out in the grass. There is another carousel in this park but I decided I would save another lesson in "all good things must come to an end" for another day. The park was on the landing line for JFK airport so approximately once every minute or two a large plane would pass overhead which Emmett would point out and give his best attempt at saying "airplane." I took a video while there where one can see Emmett getting excited at seeing me pull out the camera, approach, and suddenly change course when he hears yet another plane fly overhead:
Emmett's language has been evolving pretty fast it seems. He is trying to repeat much of what we say, and I noticed today that he is often trying to repeat the last word of a sentence that I say. Words that he has added that we could easily discern in context are things like pizza, helicopter, airplane, pasta, boat, truck, banana, train, milk, water, diaper, book, etc. The last couple of days he has also taken to letting me know that he has just pooped, not by saying it but by doing the sign language sign for poop. We didn't really ever get into the sign language thing, but the approximately three things we did show him (all done, more, and poop) he has really used a lot.
I have taken to going to a park that is relatively close by every morning with Emmett and we typically have the place to ourselves until around 9am. I would really like to understand how the park system works since the playground we have been going to is in a ritzier neighborhood and not long after we arrive each morning a city worker shows up who cleans the bathrooms then uses a leaf blower to remove most of the leaves for the play area. Someone had left a plastic tricycle there and the worker threw it away this morning, but the other playground we pass which is closer to our house has many tonka trucks, tricycles, etc. that have been left there and they remain and are used by those who show up...and there seems to be no one showing up to blow the leaves there. Strange.
I haven't been good about taking pictures. We went out to dinner tonight and this was the only picture worth keeping. Enjoy!
11 hours last night, 2-hour nap this afternoon, no crying when being put down for naps or bed...we are back on a routine and there should be no more multi-page sleep-centered posts (hopefully).
We are here...we have actually been here for a while now, but it has taken a bit to sit down and write on the blog. Now I have a little catching up to do, so here it goes:
Let's start with June 30. We spent the day packing in S.F. while a number of friends came by to entertain Emmett. We were to fly out at 10:30ish that evening, so we had all day to pack and prepare the house for our month-plus absence. We had to leave for the airport at around 8:30pm so we decided to put Emmett down bed around 6:30, wake him for the travels, and then hope he slept on the flight. Emmett, however, was a little off all day as it seemed that he could tell something was up with us packing bags, taking all of his favorite toys away, etc., so he decided he wasn't going to go to sleep so he could make sure we weren't going to run off on him while he slept with all of his favorite things in tow. We were already starting the night two hours in the hole
Jeff was kind enough to give us a ride to the airport and Emmett rode happily (I haven't mentioned this for a while, but Emmett now likes riding in the car quite a bit since he gets to do it so rarely). Similar to our last trip to Portland, Emmett fell asleep in the car seat just as we got to the exit for the airport, so he got in about four minutes sleep on the drive. We checked in with both of our bags packed to the brim and each weighing in at 50.6 pounds, just over the allowed 50 (they didn't complain about this, which was nice---I had packed each bag and checked them with the scale at home where they came in at 51 a piece, and I was hoping they would give us one-pound worth of leeway). When we had checked into the flight (or at least tried to) online, we could see there were about a dozen seats still available for sale. We had requested the aisle and window seats in our row in hopes that no one would want to sit between us, but someone had selected our middle. It ended up that the flight was sold out, so we were going to be riding with Emmett in our lap the whole way.
We didn't notice, but there was an "SSSSSSS" code on each of our tickets, and what this meant for us was that the three of us got to go through a special security screening. They patted us all down, had even Emmett take off his shoes, and took apart all of our luggage and swiped it all. It was a long, slow process and Emmett was not very happy about it. We were determined to be bomb free and they left us to repack all of our belongings in the corral they had set up for suspected terrorists. Oh, yes, I haven't mentioned this, but one of the primary bulky items to pack for the trip was 30+ cloth diapers and covers. As I knew we were running tight for space and weight, I made a carryon bag that was an improvized laptop carrier with both Andrea's and my laptops sandwiched between multiple layers of stained cloth diapers. I am sure security thought we were crazy.
We spent the wait before the flight walking Emmett around to try for sleep, to no avail, and then boarded when the time came. Surprisingly, the flight was relatively uneventful. Emmett was a little whiny and loopy from lack of sleep (it was 11ish-p.m. by this time) and we tried all kinds of tricks to get him to settle down. I had downloaded Elmo videos onto my ipod, deciding that it would be worth breaking his first 16-months without watching videos for the sanity of others on the plane. Emmett finally slept after half-an-hour or so on the plane and stayed asleep for pretty much the whole flight. We have watched him sleep on the video monitor quite a bit, so we knew he moved around a lot in his sleep, but it takes it to a whole new level when one is exhausted and trying to sleep too, and Emmett is rolling around every ten minutes or so. Needless to say, Andrea's and my sleep wasn't too great, and Emmett's was a little better but far short of his usual 11-12 hours a night.
We landed on July 1 at JFK and made it through the airport without incident. As we had so many bags, we took a taxi from the airport to our pad, and the drive was long with a pretty ugly accident. Emmett caught a little more shut eye (he was in a car seat which we brought along), as did his parents, and we made it to our new pad after an hour or so.
The flat we are staying in is simply amazing. It is probably 2400 sq. ft. and sits on the edge of the East River in Brooklyn with the Brooklyn Bridge immediately out our window, the buildings of downtown Manhattan right across the water, and the Statue of Liberty and Ellis island out to the left (I am writing this as Manhattan is lit up for the night right behind the computer). The picture at left is as much of the living space of the loft I could get into the picture. There is another window to the left with the same spacing and another to the right around the corner. The pictures below are the view from one of the four windows on the right which face Manhattan. Ideally I would have sewn them together, but I am too lazy to do that now, but the first is starting from the south and moving to the north with the Statue of Liberty visible in the first. The lot where construction is being done in the pictures is the start of a park, so the view will improve later. Oh, I guess not every reader of this would know what is going on, but Andrea and I are doing a house swap for the month of July with an photographer who lives in Brooklyn. The first day was pretty rough as all of us were exhausted and we were not able to enter and leave the house as freely as we would have liked as floor to the lobby was being painted. On top of that it was hot and we were having a lot of trouble getting Emmett to sleep even though he should have been tired, but he was clearly thrown off by the new digs.
Emmett actually slept pretty well that first night, although he cried a lot going to sleep (a theme we will see repeated shortly) which is rare for him. The second day we saw many friends. Our friends from Indiana, Tom and Jacqui, arrived the night before and we saw them for a bit, we had friends from San Francisco over for dinner (Laura, Lesley, and Sal, all transplants from S.F.), and then I left for a karaoke party at a friend, Bob's, where I saw Thor and Liz, all three of whom I played Ultimate with in Indiana with the latter two currently living in Chicago. Lots of friends on our first full day. At the same time all of this was happening we were trying to figure out how to best deal with Emmett's sleep. It is hot here (well, for a San Franciscan...the NY'ers say it is mild and pleasant), and we have been trying different combinations of fan, pajamas, t-shirts, etc. to make sure that Emmett stays comfortable through the night. He was not sleeping well, part of which was clearly due to a new locale, but we assumed part must also be due to temperature/light differences in his sleep area. We have him in a semi-closet area in the second bedroom in order to keep the light relatively low while at the same time making sure air is flowing. Well, the short of it is that he didn't sleep as long on the second night after having a bit of trouble going to sleep to start the night, and on top of this were unsure how much of an effect jet lag was having. Basically we were not having luck and weren't sure which of the parameters we could control would be helpful or not.
The third day was similar to the first two in that we were trying to get all of this hammered out while exploring the neighborhood. There are a number of playgrounds within a ten-minute walk and we were feeling them out. Something we had never come across in S.F. is the presence of constantly-on fountains in playgrounds for children to run through. We had not arrived at the playground prepared for this when we first came across one, but we just let Emmett go to see what he would do. He watched a kid or two run under the water, just went for it, and loved it. Luckily we had him in sandals (leather, not ideal) so drying out wasn't too much an issue. The two nearest and most conveniently located playgrounds have these fountains, and unfortunately they are not fenced off or in any way separated from the remainder of the playground, so one must either be constantly on alert for one's child bolting for the water or cannot go to these playgrounds as a stop-off to run errands or the like. I don't really like this set-up too much, but luckily on a walk to a party at another friend's house last night I came across a very nice playground with no water which Emmett and I tried out this morning and will probably be our playground of choice.
Wednesday our friends, Tom and Jacqui, came back by and spent the day and evening, and they got to see Emmett's sleep situation at its worst. Emmett cried and cried when put to bed at 7pm and between two diaper changes, a bit of time spent wakling him around the house or reading to him, and additional attempts at putting him to bed, he didn't go to sleep until 9ish. This was definitely the worst time we have had getting him to sleep since he was a tiny baby and wasn't pleasant in the slightest. He woke the next morning hoarse from the crying (we think) and woke very early again. He had slept about 8-9 hours a night since our arrival and things didn't seem to be improving. His naps, when he took them, were 1 hour tops and usually only one per day (home: 1 or 2 per day with 2-4 hours total nap time). Andrea and I continued different combinations with airflow and lighting but nothing seemed to be working.
The Fourth came and we made our first trip to Manhattan since arriving to go to a free concert at Battery Park at the bottom of the island with a number of friends. Emmett had taken a morning nap for an hour (still woke early, early, early in the morning, though). Actually, I should say here that through all of this, Emmett has not really been all that cranky for not sleeping. It has more been the case that we know he normally sleeps much more and that he needs more sleep than he has been getting. He has been fun and cranky-free except at the very end of the day for the most part. The 4th of July was no exception and Emmett was a good sport as we waited for the concert to start and rocked out for a little while before heading for a hummus dinner. On the travels to the restaurant Emmett fell asleep in the stroller for a good half-hour or so and then woke up getting to try hummus and pita for the first time, liking both and really putting in a good effort at saying "pita." We made our way home and put him to bed a little late. He again fought sleep but was able to sleep through the fireworks.
Side note about the fireworks. Every year they are on the East River, basically outside our window, except this year which happens to be the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's riding in a boat so they set them off on the Hudson River on the opposite side of Manhattan from us. We could still see about half of the fireworks (the ones making it over the buildings), but in the end it was probably better for Emmett's sleep issues they were a little further away. I took a video that didn't turn out so hot, but here it is for those interested:
This brings us to today. Well, sort of. I went to a 4th party after the fireworks with seven people I played Ultimate with in Indiana while Andrea went to bed. I didn't get home until 3:30 or so and Emmett (and kind Andrea) got up at 5ish. Andrea had the brilliant idea that we turn the fan off completely (perhaps part of the hoarseness problem?) and Emmett slept pretty well for his first nap. I took him to my newly-found playground and ran him silly, and he came back for another 1.5 hour nap (a 2009 NY record) going down with little fight. We went to a different playground this evening and got Emmett to bed at 7:30 with hardly a peep. We may finally be getting somewhere.
This was long and dull. I hesitate to post it, but realize that it is pretty representative of how central Emmett's sleep is to our lives. We had gotten to where we could read him pretty well in S.F. and were figuring out how to make the shift from two naps to one that he was giving us the impression he wanted or needed. Coming out here where there are so many things that are so different for all of us really makes it difficult to figure out what the important things are that we need to get right. Back home both Andrea and I have our own routines to put Emmett to bed or down for a nap that are not too different. Both have parts such as reading books in front of the crib for a while before bed, etc., but with him sleeping in a cramped space here there is no room for these sorts of things near the crib so we have had to design new routines. Today is the first time that I have felt like when I was putting him down we had establishesd something that was going to work for both of us and that made him seem like he felt safe and wasn't just being stuffed in an unfamiliar closet in an unfamiliar crib. I hope we don't have to do a five-day restart and reinvention like this on our return to S.F.
I'll close with a picture from yesterday. Emmett trying on Laura's glasses with dried fruit between his front teeth. He is all NYC style all the time.
