3 Little Kids in the Big City

Yesterday was the first Saturday in awhile that Ryan had the whole day off, so I decided we needed to do something fun while the weather is still warm (a perfect 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky!), so we packed up the fam and headed south to NYC. I love living close enough to Manhattan to do a day trip. Three times in four months isn't bad, eh?

Waiting to catch the subway train.

Davis just kept saying "Wow! Wow!" as we sped underneath the ground.

We started off our day at the American Museum of Natural History. Dinosaur bones galore, baby.  Can I just go off on a tangent and brag about our local library for a minute? Not only can you check out books and dvds a-plenty, but they too allow patrons to check out a variety of museum passes, including one to this very AMNH. What would have cost our family $70 was free! Boo-yah! Oh, and they also check out cake pans as well. Genius, right? Forget spending $20 on a character cake pan that I will use once when I can check it out for free at the library. Thanks a million CT libraries!

Taking our turn as paleontologists in training. 

The museum is across the street from Central Park, so we headed there to play at the Diana Ross Playground after we got our fill of the museum. 

After discovering that the lunch crowd at Shake Shack was lined out the door, we stopped at a street vendor for lunch. I have never enjoyed people-watching more than I do in this city.  We saw everything from a smoking tap dancer grandma to the Naked Cowboy.
Notice the boy next to Isaac--a native New Yorker as far as I could gather with my eaves-dropping skills. His dad stepped away for a second to throw something in the garbage and the kid threw his hot dog on the ground, upon which the pigeons went crazy fighting over it (which made Ryan very nervous-something about pigeons attacking him and his brother in San Francisco when they were kids...). The boy was reprimanded for wasting his lunch, but as soon as his dad stepped away again, he tossed the bun at the birds as well. Isaac tried to make small talk with him and said, "I read a book about a pigeon once, only it was blue..." The kids snarfed their hot dogs just like the pigeons and then we headed off to Times Square.

Ike was referring to this this book. Who knew we'd witness a real pigeon eating a hot dog?

Ryan and the kids in Times Square. I love that toddlers can sleep through the noise even of one of the busiest places in the country if they are tired enough. I hung out with a sleeping Davis while Ryan took Isaac and Maddie into an extremely crowded Toys R Us.

Both Isaac and Maddie said that the subway was their very favorite part about the Big Apple. 

After Times Square we headed back to our car, grabbed the other stroller, and took the kids for a walk through Battery Park to get a view of the Statue of Liberty. We then called it a great day and headed home.

Props to the hubby for navigating NYC so well. Props to me for packing enough snacks to last all day. And props to our little ones for being rock star kiddos and overall great tourists. We only had to deal with one minor meltdown on the subway when a very tired Davis was upset that he was ripped from the arms of his daddy to sit with me. He got over it.

Here are some of my most memorable one-liners from our day:

• {Isaac, after being in the car for over an hour, just minutes from arriving in Manhattan} "I never want to come to New York again! It is too far far away from Connecticut!"
• {Isaac on the not-so-crowded Saturday morning subway, pointing} "Why is that man over there leaning on the subway doors when it says Do Not Lean On The Doors?"
• {Maddie} "Why does this street smell like poop?"
• {Isaac, upon emerging from the subway into Times Square} "This is A-Mazing!"
• {Maddie} "Wow! That is the biggest building I ever did seen!"
• {Maddie} "Wow! That is the biggest boat I ever did seen!"

Did the kids have a good time? Sure did! Would they have enjoyed a day at the park and a Happy Meal just as well? Probably. But sometimes, I need to do hard things like taking three small children into the Big Apple, just to prove to myself that I can.

And friends, this Party of Five can do hard things.
And I would totally do it again.