Back-to-back adventures

High Line Park, NYC

Looking respectable, at the Met in NYC

gorgeous boy

Klondike bar

gorgeous boy, part 2

gorgeous boy, part 3

super-Agatha, to the rescue?

The beach was great-- of course! The house was right on the beach, just over the dunes, and the water was warm, calm, and shallow (although kind of muddy). It was so comfortable, with a separate bedroom for everyone and even air conditioning and a dishwasher, and so quiet, in a tiny beach community between a huge wildlife refuge and the shore, that after a week I really wasn't ready to leave. We had visits from my mom, and from our friends Meagan and Mike and family, and the house accommodated us all, with beautiful tall windows looking out on the water and sky. Usually I'm eager to get back home, but this was the rare vacation where I could have stayed longer. We had such a nice routine of swimming in the morning, then having lunch and doing activities, crafts, or reading during the heat of the day, naptime, and then a late afternoon beach time, followed by dinner and an early bed. No media, no noise. It just felt so healthy and relaxing. When we first arrived and saw the amazing view and the beautiful house, I felt such a wave of pride that we could provide this experience for our children, and for ourselves. It's not glamorous or exotic-- just an ordinary bourgeois summer vacation-- but I loved it.

While we were there we got an email from a friend who lives in New York City, asking if we wanted to come and cat-sit for them while they were away. So we returned home (in a blistering heat wave) on Saturday; I canned 23 quarts of applesauce on Monday and Tuesday, and then we went to New York on Wednesday, staying till Saturday evening. New York was wonderful, of course, but unfortunately the kids chose that prime moment to develop stomach bugs. There were some gruesome nights. Oy! But we did what we came to do: saw the McQueen show at the Met (my former student who works there whisked us in without waiting in the hours-long line); met another former student for dinner way downtown at the seaport; even went to the Cloisters Museum uptown, where we'd never been before, and the new High Line Park. All very cool, and not particularly kid-friendly, except for the park and its excellent hipster popsicle stand. We stayed at a beautiful renovated loft in the Bronx, which felt quite friendly and safe. After a couple of days, people were greeting us like regulars. Of course, we did stand out quite a bit! Not only were we unusually pale and blond, but we were going around as a family unit, tourists, where most people were commuting to work or something. So we-- and the kids especially-- got a lot of attention, all of it positive.

As I'd noticed in May at the Philadelphia Art Museum, Henry is starting to actually enjoy (or at least, not completely hate) the museum. He lit up in the antiquities section, and we specifically took him to see the mummies, tombs, and Temple of Dendur. He recognized all the sphinxes in the antiquities, and then when we were walking past an Ingres in the 19th-century wing, he shouted "Another sphinx!" And it was-- a painting this time. And at the Cloisters (all medieval art; we sold it to the children by telling them we were going to a real castle, which it is, reassembled by Rockefeller in the 1930s) he liked finding all the "hidden" elements in the tapestries. But their tummies hurt and their tempers were short, and by Saturday afternoon we were spent. It was hard, hard work being in New York with two small, cranky people.

Frankly, I've just about had it with the family fun! Bring on the school year, please! In fact, first thing Monday morning, after our return home, I took the kids out shopping for backpacks and lunchboxes. Today, we bought Henry new shoes, and his uniforms should arrive on Friday. Just two scheduled family-fun excursions remain: tomorrow, Dutch Wonderland, and Saturday, a day trip to go canoeing and to an Amish country auction with friends (downsized from a camping trip, thank goodness). Then, it'll be two weeks of morning camp for the kids and back into the office for me! (hooray!!!)