Back in the Burgh

While E and I are thrilled to be by the park, breathing better air, we both miss loft living terribly. We're not much for walls, separate rooms and privacy. Turns out, neither is the Little Man. So, all three of us dream of living in a decrepit warehouse with no walls, except the four exteriors - ones that we can draw on whenever we please :) Occasionally, a raw space, the likes of which would make my mother tremble and possibly give my offspring lead poisoning, pop up on Craigslist. And E and I sigh wistfully. Finally, P and I decided to do a scouting mission to see if the old nabe (the last stand for un-spiffed spaces) would suit the Little Man's needs, so over the bridge we scooted...

The riverside hovel of a park E and I walked to pre-P is now semi-landscaped... and even had a few benches! P and I perched there on the rocks, pretending to dodge passer-byes. The Little Man is now in charge of carrying his knapsack himself (the only sanity saving solution we could come up with, as he typically wanted me to carry half of our house on my back every afternoon and didn't understand why this was uncomfortable for me (child's seeming translation of the situations: Mama is obviously being obstinate and heartless.) I suggested he carry what he considered comfortable, on his back. The first few times he had to unpack a wee bit from his bulging bag before we'd even made it down the stoop:) Slowly but surely he's figuring out what is reasonable:). He loaded the little bag so full of rocks and shells it kept flipping his little pink scooter. Needless to say, the child didn't haul it home himself ;) (That would have been a heartless mommy:)



As he ran down the dry gully, I shouted that he was perfectly dressed - he was completely camouflaged amongst the bluish and brown rocks. He immediately dropped to the ground. I quickly snapped this pic - before he must have realized his shoes were a dead give-away - because he suddenly tucked even tighter, making sure every bit of Converse was covered :)




Then we discovered a rusty, dark passage way, down by the water. The Little Man thought it might be fun to venture under the old building, into the dark, slippery, water edged space. Honestly, I thought it looked like a fabulous time too, but had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't such a good idea until the kid was a wee bit older and more sure-footed :) Is there anything more gorgeous than rusty metal, old wood and peeling paint? P and I stood there for forever, just taking in the beauty of the colors.



Eventually the kid had picked over every rock in the park, so we pushed on. I wanted to take him to a sneaky little spot E and I discovered years ago. The absolute best night views of the city could be scored by shimmying through a little fence hole, across a board and around a hidden wharf. Imagine my surprise as we turned the corner of 8th - we were not the only ones thinking it a grand view - the dead end street and our sneaky spot had been replaced by a public park. Ah, well. Progress :) And all the better for the Little Man, since there was sand and dirt to dig in for the rest of the afternoon. Between the sensory high of digging and the sun unusually high in the sky after the time change, we accidentally played right through the dinner hour, heading home disgustingly dirty, and late.



The kid's summary of the neighborhood? He loved it. Ahhh, goooood, now all we have to do is locate a cheap, loft space, before its renovated like our dead end street....