The first week alone

So last week was my first week alone with both kids in the big city. I underestimated how hard it was going to be for all of us, and spent a lot of the week feeling sorry for myself. We went to the park when we could, but we also experienced the true cold and whipping rain and wind that will keep everyone inside. We braved it once to go to the grocery store, and I vowed never to do it again! Without a body umbrella to cover up poor little Kea, it is only indoor activities for us. After a few days inside with Connor it became more and more apparent that Connor requires a physical activity outlet every day. Dave and I began discussions about moving to the burbs. The cost of being in the city and the teeny tiny spaces, even in Brooklyn, were starting to feel like not such a good fit for our family right now.

And typical Dave and Heidi style, needing to solve the housing dilemma IMMEDIATELY, we rented a car and spent all day Saturday and Sunday touring the burbs. We spent Saturday in Connecticut with two different real estate agents showing us a few small towns. Although Connecticut is beautiful, it is not the right place for us. Dave and I didn't feel really comfortable there, except on the beach!

Sunday we spent in New Jersey and we were really happy to find several small towns we would like to live in. They were more diverse than Connecticut, and had more mom and pop shops--plus more affordable houses. We ended up putting an offer down on a small house in a town called Chatham, NJ that is a 5 minute walk to the train station and has a HUGE yard for Connor to run to his hearts content. It's a change of mindset from our original plans of living in Brooklyn, but we feel it's the best thing for right now.

Now that we are probably moving to the burbs at the beginning of January (we still don't officially have the house yet)-I am trying to enjoy this week in the city with the kiddos. I am going to be brave and take some taxis to two museums--the Childrens Museum of NYC and the Museum of Natural History. You don't put your kids in carseats in cabs here, so I should be able to juggle the two on my own if I don't have to lug carseats as well!

Today we journeyed through some heavy sleet under the umbrella to a nearby shopping center. There are lots of escalators there and I knew that Connor would love to ride them up and down for a while. We had a nice walk there--I made Connor walk this time instead of using the stroller to get additional exercise. He complained for a while, but then seemed to enjoy looking around. We had a nice time at Borders and even picked out a Christmas tree for the apartment that is made of plastic. It is Connor proof, but Tallie has already taken a few bites out of it:)

After several sobbing meltdowns over not getting two trees, or whatever else Connor was crying about--we headed outside. On our way out, there is this huge statue of a naked man. I have seen tourists stop and take pictures of it, laughing as they look at the penis. Connor ran over and began to climb on the legs, (it's a HUGE statue and kid friendly)--and then he started to yell "A penis mommy! I want to touch the penis!" And "Statue has penis? I want to touch it!" as he kept jumping up trying to reach it. This brought a small crowd of nannies and other people all around us--all laughing. It was pretty funny--and it took me quite a while to get him out of there. We drew a lot of looks as Connor cried about not reaching the statue's penis for the entire two block walk home. And I was giggling the whole way:)