Adventures in Santaland 2014

This holiday season marked year two of Macy's Santacapades which I'm pretty sure makes it a tradition.

Here we are, up and at 'em.  New York City Christmas crowds can't hold us back.

We know from last year that Santaland is the best part of the Santa experience so we went slowly and enjoyed it.  TC was a lot more into it this time and especially loved all the trains.

It wasn't until we rounded the corner to see Santa that things started getting a little hairy.

It's set up so that Santa completely blindsides an unsuspecting toddler.  You're cheerily walking through a happy Santaland forest full of Christmas trees and trains and suddenly you make a turn and Bam! Big Santa under bright lights.

Here is TC first setting eyes on Santa.  Probably also when he decided he had zero desire to walk toward that large man.

Tiger Cub was saying something about get me the bleepity-bleep out of here.

So dad stepped in as mediator.

We regained our composure over lunch at Moe's.  Tiger Cub looked quite dignified in his office casual attire and fit in perfectly with the Midtown Manhattan Friday crowd.

Florida Vacay

At the beginning of September I fell down a rabbit hole (Alice in Wonderland-style) and when I finally made it out, it was mid-November.  Which explains why I went a nearly two months without a single blog post.

We've been a busy family this fall but that's no excuse for depriving the internet world of pictures of my kid.  So here's a quick and overdue recap of our September vacation in Destin, Florida.

Tiger Cub enjoyed the sand and water 100x more than last year's trip to Destin.

Really, how can you not love this white sand and warm clear water?

Family beach shot before dinner.  The boys did a nice job of contrasting the gray skies with their colorful shirts.

Sunset beach walk with grandpa.

In unrelated stories, here is Tiger Cub terrorizing playing with our neighbors' baby.

Hilton Head

Tiger Cub and I had a fun long weekend visiting Hilton Head Island in August with the grandparents and our relatives from Boston and Maryland.  It was four solid days of swimming, biking, eating, and napping.

As you can see, life was fairly hard at the beach.

Tiger Cub was fearless in the ocean.  Even on a rough day, he loved how the waves splashed against him and knocked him down.  Playing in the sand was fun too but nothing beat those ocean waves!  He wasn't bothered by salty water splashing him in the face.

Tiger Cub even scored his own bike seat.

There is a 90 year age difference between Aunt Mary and TC!

More good times with Aunt Jane and cousins Diane, Ed, and Rick pictured below.  George, Misha, and Mary Ann escaped my camera phone!

The only thing we were missing was Randy.  Next time!

Great Crib Escape aka Oh Crap!!!

Crib Fail 101

What you are about to see is something I would not wish on anyone with a child under two.  But I have to admire that strength, control, and precision!  I guess this is the genetic result of a former gymnast mixed with high school hurdler.  And all the while carrying on a delightful little conversation with himself.

Imagine our surprise when we found 18-month-old Tiger Cub in the living room early one morning!  I hoped he had just gotten lucky.  Maybe I just needed to remove his pillow.  But after 15+ crib exits on that same day, we had no choice but to admit defeat.  It was becoming a sport and TC was winning and having a jolly good time of it.  Why don't they make crib bars go up to the ceiling???

As a last-ditch effort, I tried putting TC into a sleep sack to thwart his efforts.  No dice.  In the video above, his mattress is so low it's sitting on the floor.  That was the last last-ditch effort.

Maybe I should call Cirque du Soleil to discuss early admission to their acrobat school.  We could even breed for them.

The following few days were a frenzy of google searches and parenting books.  They say that when your child is 36 inches tall he may be able to crawl out of his crib.  Mr. Monkey Toes is only 32 1/2 inches tall!  It's been a week now and things have settled down, although this tends to happen:

As long as he's asleep I'll take it!

18 Month Report Card

Happy 18 Months to our little Spitfire!  He's come a long way since we first brought him home.

Fast facts about the life an 18-month-old Tiger Cub:

Tiger Cub can handle a jungle gym on his own.  This includes pushing past bigger kids who are discourteous enough to hesitate at the top of the slide.  Since scrambling up a jungle gym isn't all that fun for an adult, this makes our lives a little easier.

We've attempted coloring a couple of times.  I felt great about my art skills when TC looked at my drawing and exclaimed, "Meooooow!"

TC likes taking baths, making animal sounds, reading books, and trying to fit large objects into small spaces.

I tried letting him help me in the kitchen, but he mostly wanted to inspect the drain and lick the measuring cups.

And he climbed a tree once.

Happy 18 Months TC!

NYC-iversary

August 1st marked 7 years of living in New York City!  It seems like just yesterday we were saying, "sure we'll try NYC for two years."

Yes, we live on top of each other, it smells sometimes, and people honk.  A lot.  But on a more positive note, here are 5 things we do enjoy about the big city.

1.  No Car

This might seem like a negative but it's actually awesome.  No gas, no pumping gas, no parking, no dead batteries, no washing a car, no maintenance or insurance costs...you get the point.  We go everywhere on our own two feet or on the subway.  If we want to leave the city, there are planes, trains, and rental cars for that.  For the most part, Tiger Cub's car seat idles in the corner of his bedroom.

Stamina building...these little legs can go half a mile at 17 months.

2.  Culture and Entertainment

Our daily routines do not include frequenting the Museum of Modern Art or Broadway, but when we do have the occasion to do something special, there's so much right here.  And when we have visitors, its fun and easy to entertain.

Like that time 5-month-old Tiger Cub insisted that we take him to the Met.

3.  People

More people isn't always a good thing but sometimes it is.  More diversity, more people to meet, more potential friendships.

High population density perk:  Tiger Cub knows a whole slew of toddlers born the same month and year as him.  When they get together, it's cuteness overload, which a mom friend captured beautifully in this shot.

4.  Food

Hmmm...Greek or Uzbek?  Even a young discriminating Tiger Cub is alternatively overjoyed and overwhelmed by the culinary options.

More relevant to our daily lives, we're surrounded by some really wonderful bakeries and bagel shops.  There is no shortage of freshly baked carbs to fuel our walking habit.

5.  Transportation

When we do get tired of being here, it's easy to leave.  We have three international airports to choose from and over the years we have taken direct flights to a respectable number of states and European capitals.  LGA alone has a flight every hour to Atlanta so it's easy to find a flight back to Georgia.  For regional travel, there are trains that leave the city going in every direction.

4th of July Stay-cation

This year marked the third straight 4th of July we stayed in NYC.  On previous Independence Day holidays, we've visited Budapest and Antigua, but simpler times and a toddler in tow have us getting our kicks locally.

No cook-outs or sparklers for us (we're not un-American, just New Yorkers), but a few field trips and quality family time made the holiday weekend special.

We go to our local bakery often, but the red, white, and blue decorations made it extra special on July 4th.  Our little firecracker had a good time playing with balloons.

Tiger Cub has really gotten into trains recently.  He makes a cute "chugga-chugga" sound to imitate them and the alphabet train is by far his favorite toy right now.  As a treat, we took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan instead of the subway.

Here's "chugga-chugga" in action:

Once we got to "the city" we walked around, had Mexican for lunch and split a cupcake (3 ways) for dessert, and caught a little bit of the Argentina vs. Belgium World Cup game.

TC wasn't sure about this escalator ride in the Lexington Avenue subway station.  "Don't drop me guys, it is a loooong way down!"

June Happenings

The good times of summer are even better when Grandma visits!  Under her care, we enjoyed home-cooked meals, a few outings, and weather that was fairly cooperative.  Grandma and TC spent lots of quality time together and hit up all the good spots like...

McDonald's.  I hear he enjoyed the fries but didn't care much for the nuggets.

Park Fountains.  Escaping the heat city-style.

The High Line (mom and dad came too).

Madison Square Park

Tiger Cub came down with a cold at the beginning of her visit but Grandma didn't mind.  More couch snuggles! 

In other news, TC recently became acquainted with his 7-week-old neighbor.  We're looking forward to many good times with our friends Lacy & Vinny and their adorable little monkey!

This moment captured by Lacy looks like a snapshot of what life with 2 kids could look like!

So if I had babies 14 months apart, I suppose I could expect something like two happy and peaceful boys just chilling out while one affectionately pokes the other in the butt.

Early Toddler-Hood Love

No matter what age Tiger Cub is, I don't want him to get any older.  But now I'm extremely serious:  TC, if you're reading this, DON'T GET ANY OLDER.

At 15-16 months, we've hit a sweet spot age.  Tiger Cub is sleeping through the entire night consistently and taking a rock star nap every afternoon.  He is not teething or sick and doesn't yet display behavior that falls into the "terrible two" category.  

I'm hastily writing this before things change.

TC is basically lots of cuteness and laughs occasionally interrupted by a mini tantrum or mild babysitter anxiety.  True, he's not a big eater and still prefers to drink his milk out a bottle instead of a sippy cup (we're far from perfect).

But these faces!  

Gotta love a little boy who wants to help with the copy machine!

And we're into animal sounds.

"You guys keep the bottles coming and I'll keep sleeping 11 hours straight at night."

Fine.