Baby on the Go

My son is now seven and a half months. Crawling, pulling himself up on every possible box or shelf or piece of furniture to stand, and tumbling down to the ground with a loud thud. All of this making my heart so excited and extremely nervous. And that is only in our apartment, never mind when we travel!!

I was born and raised in Massachusetts, and since meeting my husband four years ago ((and moving to NYC nine months after meeting him)), I have probably traveled between the two states around thirty times. I have done most of the traveling by bus and car. However, in December 2010, we took Amtrak for the first time and fell in love!! Since Vedder has been born, he has traveled to Massachusetts four times, twice on Amtrak and also loved it.

Just to clarify things, I do not work for Amtrak at all, nor am I getting paid for this blog post. I am just an extremely satisfied customer, and want to get the word out to other families.

The first time Vedder and I took the train from New York Penn Station to South Station Boston was Thanksgiving Day 2011. Now I am not saying that Amtrak completely takes away all the stresses of traveling with a child, especially an infant, but they sure do make it easier. In November, Vedder was almost four months old. I had a huge stroller, carseat, diaper bag, purse ((which for me is a large bag)) and rolling suitcase. My husband brought us to Penn Station to help me with all the luggage. Of course my genius thinking of taking a 2pm train on Thanksgiving Day because it would save me $75 as opposed to traveling the day before or after the holiday didn't quite work out. I did not factor in that Penn Station is also on 34th street like Macy's. Yep. I completely did not factor in at all that while I would be trying to lug my whole life in 3 bags and a stroller, there would be those thousands upon hundreds of people who come to New York this one time of year to see the nations biggest parade. On the same street I needed to catch a train. Like I said, I'm a genius.

However, once we got there the employees of Amtrak were so helpful my very frazzled state was quickly calmed. They even allowed my husband to help get Vedder and me settled on the train even though he was not joining us on the trip. Many times throughout the four hour trip, a train worker approached me to see if I needed anything, even offering to get water from the cafe cart for us. So nice!!

Our second trip to Massachusetts was just a couple weeks ago. And I feel like as my son gets older, my brain gets fried a little more. On this trip, right after leaving Penn Station I realize I didn't print out my ticket from the kiosk. I only had a receipt of purchase email!! After having to purchase another ticket on the train, a worker gave me all the paperwork, explaining how to get a full refund for the previously purchased ticket. And then when leave Boston a few days later, because of said fried brain, we missed our scheduled departure. The man at the ticket booth was so calm and helpful, I didn't even have the chance to worry and freak out before he called a Red Hat over to help me and store my bags until the next train to New York. Phew!!

The designation between cars - cafe, business, quiet, and coach - makes it very easy to not feel like I am that obnoxious person with the child laughing, singing, and yelling on the train. The scenery of the northeast route from NYP to BOS is beautiful. While Vedder naps I am constantly snapping pictures of the gorgeous new England towns as they fly by. Then when he is awake we are either looking out the windows together, playing with toys on the seats, or walking to the cafe car where they have fresh fruit cups that I am able to slice up and share with him.

The only thing I would change, or have Amtrak add to better the experience for traveling families, are changing tables. Traveling with an infant as often as I do four hours is a long time to go without a diaper change. And even though the handicap bathrooms offer enough space for me to put a changing pad on the floor, the sanitary aspect of that is not appealing at all.

The Amtrak train to Boston passes right past our apartment in Queens and over the park we go to weekly. My husband and I are teaching Vedder that this is the train to Nana and Grandad's house. Even though he may not understand what we are saying, he definitely understands the noise of the train and stares up at it as it zooms. U.

Our next trip to Massachusetts is at the end of the month. I am very excited to be seeing my family again so soon and am looking forward to another pleasant experience traveling.

The night the Grandad Train came to our home

Twenty years ago, Michael (my dad, not my husband.. but now that I write that, I guess there is some Freudian thing going on) came into my life when he started dating my mom. I began calling him dad soon after and haven't stopped. They married when I was eleven. In the ceremony he also exchanged rings with my sister and me, us taking him as our dad. My brother did the same with a ring from my mom, ceremonially making us siblings. This day solidified our family. When I was thirteen, I changed my last name to his. My dad has always been the rock to our family. I have always been thankful for everything he has done for me (even though it took me years to show it). However, what happened last night is much more than I will ever be able to thank him for.

When Vedder was born, my dad said he wanted to be called "Grandad." We laughed and try to tell him not to give his hopes up. Vedder began to call him "DingDong." We laughed harder. Then not long ago Vedder started saying Grandad and hasn't stopped since. He talks about Grandad and the "Grandad Train" (Amtrak) every day. Last night, all he wanted to do was play trains with Grandad.

This breaks my heart. I live with my husband and son in NYC. When I moved here five years ago, I had no real plans for staying this long. However life happens. Now I am here (with still a hope in my heart that we will one day be back living in Massachusetts). I talk to my family often. I text with my sister almost daily, my brother frequently, and facetime with my parents every weekend. I dream of raising my child in the suburbs with a yard he can run in and I can watch him from the kitchen window.

But for now, a trip up to MA every few months and the everyday advances in technology, help Vedder to have a relationship with Nani, Grandad, Auntie, and Unc.

So back to my story about last night.

While facetiming with Auntie, Vedder kept asking if she talked to Grandad. "Where's Grandad? Do you talk to Grandad? I want to play trains with Grandad." So we hung up with my sister and called my mom. Mom instantly answers the phone. "Hi, Vedder!!" "Ummm, Nani, I want to see Grandad." ((My poor mom and sister. Right now in V's life NO ONE measures up to Grandad.))

As soon as they see each other over the iPad, they laugh hysterically. This happens every time we facetime, and lasts for the first few minutes of the call. Just looking at each other laughing. Warms the heart.

Then after talking a bit, Vedder said "I want to play trains with Grandad." We moved the iPad onto the floor of his room. He showed my dad his train tracks all set up. While Vedder pushed around the trains, my dad said "Chugga Chugga Choo Choo!"

This lasted a few more minutes, but Vedder kept looking at me and saying "I want to play trains with Grandad." Obviously it was getting to the point where having Grandad watch from the iPad wasn't good enough. He wanted him there in person. This confused and longing look on Vedder's face broke my heart. And while my mind began to wallow in self pity for living so far away, something amazing happened.

I looked over at the iPad and noticed my dad. He had his head laying down on the kitchen table, imitating Vedder (he lays down on the floor to play trains). My dad had a small black Brio train in his hand, gliding it back and forth on the table. Vedder saw this and smiled. I saw this and cried. They were really playing trains together. Two hundred and fifty miles apart. My heart was so full it could have burst!

They played like this for a while. And as I became the official "FaceTime iPad Holder" I knew I was no longer needed (well, except to be the FaceTime iPad Holder). They played trains, made choo-choo noises, and watched each other. It was beyond the most perfect moment.

Like April 19th solidified our family years ago, February 5th is the day that solidified Vedder and Grandad's bond. They are best friends, and this moment is something they will have for the rest of their lives.


((SIDENOTE: I would also like to thank my parents. Not every family has the amount of love that ours does and I am so grateful for everything you have taught and shown me. It is because of your love and parenting - and our arguments, my rebellion, and your forgiveness - that has truly molded me into the mom I am today. I would be so lost without your constant love and guidance. Thank you for never giving up and always showing me that family is the strongest bond there is. Blood does not make a family, the people in it do. I am so proud to be your daughter.))

Ho! Ho! Ho! Where do the stockings go?

One dilemma Michael and I have faced trying to create as much holiday spirit as possible for our child ((who's only 4.5 months and has no clue what's going on, but we're mostly just ironing out the kinks for next year)) is the hanging of the stockings. Growing up, our house had a fireplace, so there was no real concern as to where the stockings would go. Michael's mother made a makeshift fireplace on the bureau in the living room, where he and his siblings hung their stockings. Now we are left with a sort of predicament as to where Vedder will hang his.

Even though I think it is fine that he leave it for santa under the tree, I dont want him to just find it there in the morning with the rest of the presents. It was always a part of christmas tradition growing up that we first got to open our stockings. Then my parents would make us eat breakfast before opening all those taunting presents under the tree. While as a child it seemed like cruel and unusual punishment, now looking back, it made the magic of christmas morning last just a little bit longer. So now, while I cursed my parents for making me do this throughout my childhood, I will be enforcing this same tradition on to my inevitably aggravated child.

We thought of the idea of Santa hiding his stocking, to make for a fun game. However, with our apartment being essentially four rooms - living/dining room/kitchen, our bedroom, Vedder's bedroom, and bathroom- there really isn't many places to "hide." Michael also suggested doing a makeshift fireplace like his mom did. I'm pulling a scrooge on that one, since we do not have a similar bureau in our "living room." Also, because the less I have to do or make around the holidays, the better. We also had the idea of having Santa hanging the filled stocking on the bedroom door. The latter is what we will be doing this year, while we search for more ideas for years to come.

Who knew that the lack of a highly un-child-friendly household furnishing would create such a problem at year's end.

Happy Holidays!!

Broadway vs the Beach

So let me start this blog off with a little story. Yesterday I was leaving Barnes & Nobles in Manhattan when a woman stopped me. She asked me if I was a New Yorker because she needed directions. I gladly gave her directions to the Met which was only 3 blocks away. However by doing this, she labeled me a "New Yorker." I do not consider myself one at all. I love my New Yorker husband who was born and raised and has lived 31 out of 33 years of life here, but marrying him doesn't make me one too. I am a New Englander. Plain and simple.

Now that I have said that, living here in NYC definitely impacts the way we are raising our son. He is only 12 weeks old but has already adapted to the lifestyle. Sleeping through fire engine sirens and the horn of the Amtrak train that flies by our apartment. Smiling at the screeching breaks of the approaching trains in the subway. Calmly sitting in his stroller while mama bumps up and down the stairs of our apartment building. All of these things I believe he has inherited from his dad. Me not so much.

Where as Michael grew up ten blocks away from our current apartment, it feels like sometimes I grew up worlds away from it. Plymouth, Massachusetts is not the middle of nowhere. Like NYC, it is filled with tourists coming to see the "foundation" of this country, America's Hometown. And while Rockafeller Center may be impossible to walk through from early November until after the new year, Plymouth can hold its own in the tourist industry, especially around Thanksgiving. That said, I don't believe that the population of Plymouth would even fill the first 20 floors of the Empire State Building.

I grew up in a neighborhood. Not like anything here in the boroughs. A place where we would have block parties with all the families. BBQs, bike races, camping in the back yard, getting lost in the woods between houses, coming home for dinner when my mom would ring a bell. Yes. That is right. My dad hung this big cast iron cow off the back porch that had a bell hanging from it and when we heard it ring we would run home from where ever we were in the neighborhood. My dad also would bake homemade chocolate chip cookies every Friday when he got home from work, and me, my sister and brother would always have friends over. We had a tree fort in our back yard and when we were old enough, were allowed to ride our bikes down the road to Bramhall's Country Store to get ice cream. No, I did not grow up in the olden days. This was only ten to fifteen years ago.

Fast forwarding to now, 2011, living in Queens, NY, I do not see myself raising my son in the same way I was raise. This sometimes really makes my heart hurt. Years ago I never even imagined ever having children, nevermind worrying so much about how I would raise them. I, myself, have definitely adapted well to the "city life." I love not having a car, being able to walk a few blocks to get everything I need, having fresh fruit and veggie carts at every corner. I like being able to walk eight blocks to my job, and the convenience of being able to get pretty much anything you need 24 hours a day. However, it kind of sucks knowing I won't be able to just ring a bell for my son to come home from playing in the street with the neighborhood kids. ((There DEFINITELY isn't any "playing in the street" here.)) And he won't be able to go play in the woods, or even in a yard for that matter, without having to walk 24 blocks to the nearest park.

I know this probably sounds absolutely ridiculous. I am laughing at myself as I type this. Plymouth is not worlds away from Queens. It is actually only a 4.5 hour drive! I look at the surroundings of my childhood and the surroundings of my husband's, and they are just very different. Part of me feels like my son is going to miss out on alot not being able to grow up like I did. Another part of me is excited for him to experience a city that has so much more than was ever offered to me in a small town. There is a lot of different culture here, from museums to even the corner deli. But Plymouth has great history, too. While NYC is the mecca for the most different types of art, it is small towns on Cape Cod that inspire such beautiful works. Where Manhattan offers a great enviroment for those business people with the need for speed ((well maybe not in this economy right now)), New England offers that slower, simpler life of many family owned businesses that towns are founded on. All my thoughts of raising a child seem to be caught up in a vicious cycle of this vs. that, here vs. there, Broadway vs. the beach.