Our Dumbo Day

What a lovely week! The weather was Perfect. Sans nap (necessitating a mid-day trip home) and sans cold (necessitating, well, a different climate) P is perfectly content to play inside for the morning and then outside all afternoon. I felt like we finally reached homeostasis. The right amount of "out" has led to a more peaceful "in" and an easier time of it getting out. He's also been fairly willing to meet up with friends in the afternoon. The success of these meetings has greatly varied :) and he often reminds me that he'd rather play "with just you, mama, and papa." I've Got to read Neufeld's "Hold on to your kids" to iron out any lasting wrinkles about peer imperatives lurking in my psyche...

So I am aiming for 50/50 peer play vs mama and P time. We went to Dumbo for one of our days. We started with some sand play with trucks, followed by castle building. P had brought Snow White and Peter Pan with us and the castle belonged to the Evil Witch (amazingly missing from our ridiculously inclusive toy collection) played by a bearded dwarf. Then he climbed the rocks and tossed baby brother in a hole. It started as torture and turned to home building, followed by demolition and excavation. Followed, of course, by sand burial of P and, later, BB.

The playground is just around the bend, but P still has No Interest in playgrounds, so we stayed at the beach all afternoon. Then we scooted to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory for some homemade vanilla. As we sat in the shade P grinned at me and said "Ahhh. This is lovely mama. Sitting and chilling with ice cream. What a nice day." I hate to laugh when he's being sincere, but I can't help it :)

E walked the bridge from work and joined us at Rice for dinner. Their vegetarian options are pretty extensive so lots of new flavors pass P's palate - which he prefers. I mean, he loves his old favorites (huuuullo pizza!) but he really adores new foods, devouring their edamame hummus and corn cakes. Bed should have followed the chocolate cupcake, but P really wanted to return to the water in search of a driftwood balance beam he played on last year. The board was gone, but some rock tossing while watching the sun set over the city balanced out his disappointment and finished the day perfectly.