Wild Manhattan Days

I'm going to skip ahead to the semi-present and slowly catch up on all of my missed posts ... tomorrow, or something like that :) We had a Breakthrough the other day, so that seems like a priority. Along with arguing with a security guard, someone calling the cops on me (separate incidents) and a crazy man grabbing my kid (also separate) - oh, and and P actually enjoying peer play, its a bloggin' sorta day... But back to the breakthrough.

P has had a Really Rough Time transitioning out of the house lately. I say lately, but its been part and parcel with P for years, waxing and waning but always present. This dilemma has led me to try Many different approaches to aid his transitions. Providing him with a timely countdown is a highly touted approach. (This only served to stress him out ridiculously. He'd worry the 10 minutes was up for the entire 10 minutes.) This folly led me to try more of a sneak attack. I'd tell him our general plans in the morning (and, mind you, our plans are always discussed and made a week ahead, only those passing With P approval make it to fruition) and then we'd play until the last minute at which time I'd say "Ok! Shoes on and here we go!" I thought this was working, he'd hop up in a sudden frenzy and run to the door. In retrospect, I see that his "excitement" was actually "overwhelmed anxiousness" and after a few weeks of this fight or flight response he started choosing fight. So then we went through a period of "Nooooooo! I Won't Go!" Him, fed up and furious, me, bad mommy, apparently clueless that I'd been stressing out my three year old...

So we skipped a lot of things for a while. Stayed in. But the catch is that he doesn't Shine when we're in all of the time. The kid Needs Lots of Input. And he really does love people. And he really does bounce off of the walls if these needs aren't met:) So how do you get a kid out of the house who says he doesn't want to get out of the house but who needs to get out of the house? I didn't know, so I asked him (again. Yes, we've chatted about it many times before, but every week he grows, so...)

Turns out he has lots of crazy worries. So each day we now brief before breakfast. I describe how the day will go, trying to provide all the details possible (what subway, what stops, how many blocks to here or there, if we'll scoot or walk, who we'll see, what we'll do, how long it will last, ad nauseam, ad infinitum...) He asks Lots of questions. Many seem bonkers, but I still remember irrational fears from childhood, so I bear with his worries that a tree may fall on him and we discuss solutions for each conundrum. Its worked for a whole three day and I'm unbelievably optimistic . I'll blog when it all changes again :)

So on the plate Tuesday was a tour of the waterfall installations around Manhattan. We were meeting homeschool friends for the outing and P was excited (once he found out our boat had no sail that could blow us off course and that there would be high railings to prevent falls). At the pier, we discovered the tour sold out while we snacked in the shade. Whoops. He was devastated our quest wouldn't go as planned. We had a lovely chat about the goal of our quest (fun) and that maps often have to be lost to actually find what you are looking for (thanks Pooh!). He reached up and ripped his imaginary quest map into pieces and smiled at an unknown future.

P, ripping his map and letting it go:


So we headed down to the Staten Island Ferry with some of our friends and had a blast riding it over and back. It went past the waterfalls And the Statue of Liberty, leaving P satiated on his original vision. He took a ton of photos. The following are all his:
Photos by Phoenix:






As we exited the facility, two moms with kids in strollers and me with P on my scooter, a guard told me I needed to carry the scooter. It was his unlucky day. I've had one too many guards make me carry my child (my already nervous about cops child), my Ginormous bag and my heavy scooter just because it isn't a typical way to move a child from point A to point B. So I sweetly told him it was my stroller, that we promised not to scoot it. (I understand, fast scooting indoors =dangerous for pedestrians.) Nah, he said, you're gonna have to carry that. Ahhh, because its a two wheeled kid carrier rather than a three or four? Feeling more New York than Kansas, I told him he was discriminating against my stroller choice and strolled off behind our friends :) Here's hoping these moments diminish P's immense fear of uniformed authority figures....

The kids ran loose in a nearby playground with Fantastic climbing structures.




Eventually BB had to come out of the bag, as P is going through a pretty intense Baby Brother phase (I think I was myself for about 20 minutes, tops, on Monday:) P pushed him in a swing, then climbed in himself and repeatedly threw BB to the ground, laughing maniacally. Then Benny and the twins came over to participate. They ended up swinging BB beside P, Nini sweetly asking "the little monster" if he was ok. Dez and Benny decided Baby Brother needed a seatbelt and therefore fashioned one out of something they found on the ground. It was fairly awe inspiring to see P sharing BB with his pals and the pals' cooperation with one another. But only able to take it for so long, P eventually reclaimed BB and strapped him to our bag, actually growling at Nini when she tried to remove him :)



Afterwards, P preferred to scoot to Papa rather than take the train, despite the fact that it was a third of the way up the city :) So we scooted through the financial district as everyone headed home from Wall street, watched by camera crews for signs of monetary misery. We eventually made it to a huge construction site, eye candy for P. There was a long tarp hung beside the sidewalk with large peeping holes regularly spaced. At a three year old's height, nonetheless. So P stuck his torso through and stood in awe of the Largest Crane he'd ever seen. The site was dug deep, deep, down to prepare for a new foundation. But directly on the other side of the tarp was a wide wooden plank and low metal railing. Ostensibly, for workers to travel along. To one walking beside the tarp it Could look like a kid was dangling over a precipice, I suppose, with his caring mother standing directly beside him. Or at least I assume that was what some of the passers by thought when they seemed totally shocked that my kid was checking stuff out, one woman going so far as to exclaim about it into her cell phone. But being in no hurry, P poked his head through these holes for forever. Then a cop came over to us.

C: He can't do that.
Me: Oh sorry. Really? He can't look in the site?
C: Well, yah, but he's uhhh... I just got a call that there was a kid in the construction site.
Me: So its ok what he's doing?
C: Well, what if he fell?
Me: Are you kidding? I'm his mother! Do you think I'd let him do something dangerous? There's a wooden walkway where he is!
C: Yah, no, uh, I know. It's just, well, it LOOKS dangers to people.
Me: Oh. Well, that's their problem.

We politely smiled at each other and I turned around to ignore him and the village that was trying to raise my child...

Then (as that kinda karma was apparently in the air), as we scooted further uptown a passerby called out to P (who was gesticulating with his right hand at an invisible BB while holding onto the scooter with his left (this being his normal mode of transport)) "Careful!! Hold on tight! Both hands!" Thanks buddy, we're in a hurry to dangle off of a skyscraper down the road, if you don't mind...

Then, an unseasonably social P played with a little boy in the sand at the Union Square playground until it was cold and dark. As we left our second playground for the day to grab some grub, P hung off of the side of the scooter, banging a paper cup on the ground as we went (FYI, we were walking, not zooming Just wanted to make that clear since I'm apparently frivolous with my child's life). One of our city's Unfortunates called out to P. Better trained in such situations, E and I ignored and walked. But P, he Knew the tone was different. Someone was Yelling at/to him in the dark. Someone he didn't know. And he turned. The guy pounced and started spewing words at P, teasing him about pulling him along on the scooter. Poor P. Always expecting the best from adults, he was trying so hard to make sense of what the man was saying, but really not liking the situation at the same time. As I very firmly, but nicely, responded to the man, he reached out and grabbed P's arm to pull him along. Man, this is Manhattan. You just don't touch each other here. And you Sooo don't touch my kid. So we carefully extricated ourselves from the situation, pronto, and then had to explain the word "crazy" to our three year old.

As we sat on Sixth, looking out the window and munching burritos, P asked about the store across the street. What were those people doing, he wanted to know. What, the scantily clad, neon lit mannequins at the porn shop across the street? And after such a long and eye opening day for a such a small kid, I remembered my vow of simplicity when answering my over-thinking three year old and kept it basic and sex free :) Oh, those? Its so you know what the clothes look like off of the hanger...

On the train ride home, a sweet old woman with a Heavy accent befriended P, offering him a piece of her pie when she saw him eyeing the pizza box (And no, for any villagers looking for a mama to burn, I did not let the child take food from a stranger on the subway). Then she played hand games with him, quizzing him on his numbers and getting him to do simple math. He had a hard time understanding her, but played along. Then she told us P can't be an Only, that that's no good. Period. We should have Two, like her. Having had just about enough free advice for the day our stop came none too soon. And as we stepped out into the quiet, Brooklyn night, I knew P had had Plenty of Input and People for the day and it would be great to be home:)