NYC Moms

A Manhattan Bedroom

 There are some things only parents understand and there are some things only New Yorkers understand. And occasionally there are times when those two levels of understanding collide. Such is the case recently with our Manhattan apartment and my 7-month old baby who does not sleep through the night.
  
At my son’s 4-month well visit the doctor laughed out loud when my husband asked when we could start putting him to sleep in the same room as his toddler brother. She went on to advise that we not even bother trying to sleep training our baby until he was 6-months old since he was so small (less than 3 percentile on the growth chart). At that point the twice weekly 6 or 8 hour nighttime stretches disappeared. My body experienced new levels of exhaustion as I longed for a simple 4 hour stretch each night. I consulted with friends. I read the chapters on sleep in our baby books again and again. I reviewed the sleep books on our shelf. But there are no chapters or plans for families living in a two bedroom apartment with a toddler in one room and the baby in the parents’ room. Not to mention the neighbors upstairs who don’t want be up in the middle of the night listening to a crying baby anymore than we do. 

"Don't Touch...The Kids"

You now the signs at the beach or in parks that say “Don’t Touch the Animals”?  Or the signs in museums and galleries that warn, “Do Not Touch”? They need to issue a similar sign with your discharge papers when you leave the hospital that declares “Don’t Touch the Baby”. You can have your choice between a tag around the neck or a stamp on the forehead. As an extra precaution you can get a billboard for your stroller canopy.

Why is this necessary you ask? Because for some reason, total strangers think it’s completely acceptable to touch a baby. Yes, I said strangers and if you’re a parent you know exactly what I’m talking about.

A Double Stroller Changed My Life

It was a glorious Sunday. A long awaited day because this was when we were going to get our new double stroller . (Applause here) The anticipation was out of control. My expectations were growing by the day. In the weeks since we ordered it, I had decided that our double stroller was going to change my life. Our toddler was excited too. He wanted to have a double stroller like his friend. I knew he’d be disappointed that ours looked different. Little did he know his mom was expecting the Messiah. I made no secret of it either. Another mother jokingly asked me if I was ready for my life changing experience and I answered yes, and was not joking. Surely I was setting myself up for disappointment, right? 

How could it go wrong? Clearly the only thing wrong was our misguided feeling that we wouldn’t need a double stroller. My aching back begs to differ. I guess I’m older and more exhausted than I was when my toddler was a baby because it seems much more challenging to carry the baby around while strapped to me now than it did two years ago. The only difference now is that I’m also pushing a 29 pound toddler in a stroller. Oh yeah, that.

Pumping in the Bathroom

Last week I found myself in a midtown hotel for a conference 2 days in a row. As the mother of a 5 month old baby who is exclusively breastfed, my dilemma was where to pump. Seeing no other option, I headed to the bathrooms. On the floor of the conference the line was out the door. There was a separate handicapped single bathroom but since I’d seen a number of handicapped people at the conference it didn’t seem right to occupy it for my needs. I ended up two floors down from my conference in a public bathroom where there was no line but there was steady flow of people. 

I situated myself in the stall, connected my battery pack, and attached the bottles. I pulled up a photo of my little one on my blackberry, looked at my watch and switched the power on. As if on cue I heard people in other stalls commenting on the noise. No big deal right? Not until two women walked in and had the following exchange: 
“What’s that noise?”
“I don’t know.” 
“It sounds like, I don’t know.” 
“What is it?” 
“IT'S A BREAST PUMP!” I said firmly. A noise that was part giggle part grunt followed from the women. 
“Well it’s annoying,” said one of the women with more than a little attitude.

The Accidental Stay-At-Home Mom

There once was a time when I loved my job so much that I’d often say “I can’t imagine ever not working.”  My husband and I even joked that he’d work from home and take care of the kids we’d have one day.  We said we’d be like the Seavers from the TV show Growing Pains except that he’s an architect, not a therapist.

I was so certain of my passion for working that I remember getting in arguments with my father-in-law. He felt I should be at home like my mother-in-law was for her kids. I just didn't see ever wanting to do that.   

Waiting for the Mail

It was like any other week day. As I walked into our building I stopped at the mailboxes and grabbed the envelopes and catalogues from our box. I entered the apartment and dropped the pile on the table. A while later, after I did a little of this and that, I eventually got around to looking through it.  

Mixed in with all the other pieces of mail was an envelope from one of the preschools we applied to for next year. I didn’t think anything of it since it was a month before the date we were told we’d learn our fate. (We still had play dates left to go to at two of the schools.) Maybe it was an acknowledgement of our application? Maybe it was to notify us of a missing piece of the application or another release form like the one they’d sent a few weeks earlier? I opened it. Suddenly I felt as though I’d been punched in the stomach.

“We are unable to offer a space for the coming year…” the letter said, in part. 

Our Apartment Is Shrinking

As far as Manhattan apartments go we have it pretty good. Of course we pay an arm and a leg but it’s not bad. We live in a first floor, two bedroom duplex in a brownstone. So what if there’s only a staircase (no door) between the upstairs and our bedroom downstairs. We have private outdoor space and the laundry is just one flight down. When we moved in just before the birth of our son it seemed huge. We put a trundle bed in the baby’s room and knew there’d be room for a dresser, a glider, and a crib. So for more than two years our family of 3 has been comfortable.
 
Along the way the toys started accumulating. They used to fit in a single plastic bin in the corner with some overflow neatly lined up in the living room. Now there are two plastic bins. Plus stacks of puzzles, a container of Legos, stuffed animals and dolls, cars, trains, blocks, and more. The toys are bigger too, including, a tricycle, and basketball hoop (which lives in outside). Every time I try to put some things away or move some toys downstairs my son finds them and takes them out again. There are two strollers inside our front door. The books now take up two shelves and are making their way onto a third. (And all of those things we’ve been moving out of reach are getting higher and higher as my son grows.) 
 

Where's Pop Pop?

Nine months ago my father passed away. I’ve been dealing with my grief while also living my life here in New York with my husband and son. My siblings and my mom are 200 miles away all within a half hour of each other.
 
The week before my father suffered the heart attack that ultimately claimed his life my son had spent a week with my parents while my husband and I had our first “no child” vacation since our son was born.
 
During the week spent with his grandparents at their house, my son had a blast. He hardly noticed our absence, played with all of the new toys, enjoyed all the space at their large house with a sprawling yard, and visited with his cousin, Aunt and Uncle. He wasn’t even two yet so who knows what he’ll remember of this time when he grows up. But my mom sure remembers it and my dad passed away having spent a week getting to know his only grandson more than he had before.
 

I Need A Third Arm

So I’m sitting in our tiny bathroom, you know, one that’s barely big enough for one person. Let me give you a visual: You can’t open or close the door while you’re sitting on the toilet. My husband is working late, I need to bathe my toddler, and my newborn picked now to be awake after sleeping much of the day. I can’t bathe my son and hold my baby at the same time. I can’t put my baby down on the bathroom floor (due to space and lack of comfort). As my son went running naked into the bathroom and I told him to wait for mommy, a light bulb went off in my head. Sure, it’s not the solution to world peace, but I realized I could take the car seat off the stroller frame and put it in the doorway to the bathroom. Hopefully I’d be able to put the baby in it while bathing my older son and rock the car seat when the baby cries. 

So there I was next to the bathtub holding the crying baby and trying to calm him enough to be able to put him back in the car seat. Once I did, I sat there with my hands in the tub and used one foot to rock the car seat, occasionally using my right arm to grab the pacifier (which he ultimately wouldn’t take). Then I realized, this would be so much easier if I only had another arm complete with a hand. It was a vision straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Germs, Germs, Germs

I once read that people who use shared laundry machines, as in apartment building laundry rooms or laundromats, get sick more often. As a result, I hand washed my sons clothes in the sink and hung them to dry until he was 1. Now I’m doing the same for my newborn. I’m really not a germaphobe. This is the one thing I take to an extreme for some reason. Never mind all the other opportunities to encounter sickness on a given day.

In spite of my best efforts to stay healthy, when I went into labor with my newborn, I had a cold, which I’m sure I got from my toddler. He likely brought it home from daycare or from a ride on the Subway. The nurses assured me I wouldn’t get my new baby sick. We survived. My toddler got better, I got better, and my newborn didn’t get sick. Phew.

A week later, a few of our friends told me they had missed my son’s Bris because either they were sick or one of their kids were sick and they didn’t want to risk bringing their germs around me or the baby. Maybe all the hype of Swine Flu has us on edge or maybe they would have made the same judgment call any other time of the year? Nonetheless, I was appreciative. But the germs still caught up with me. A few days later I was sidelined with a stomach flu. Just what I needed! Once again, we survived. While I love to share, I was happy to have succeeded in keeping this virus to myself.