Month: November 2012

Mylostone – Scooting

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When Mylo was 17 months old we saw a young boy who looked of a similar age, whizzing around on a scooter at the park. I asked his dad who was scooting along with him, how old he was. He was nineteen months.

A short while after, I ran out and got my boy a scooter.

Since his earliest months, Mylo has been such a physical child. At just three months old, he would grab hold of the tassels on our living room carpet and drag himself forward. At seven months old, he learned to pull himself up holding on to the TV console. So it wasn’t ridiculous of me to assume that my son would take to scooting overnight.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

As most things in our home do, the scooter acquired a name, Ergo. However there was little interest in doing anything with Ergo other than pushing it back and forth from Mylo to daddy or Mylo to mommy, down our long hallway. We would take it to the park, only to have it sit and gain the interest of every child but our own.

I was a bit surprised, not to mention that I felt a little bit defeated, too. Mylo loved to figure out how to make things operate, and the fact that he couldn’t make the Ergo work, was disappointing. I had cast it aside as an $85 house toy that looked good parked next to Jason’s bike in our spare bedroom.

But then it happened, almost overnight. He was two years and three months old. I went to work and came home to stories from Mylo’s goomah (grandma) about him and Ergo at the park. I just nodded and smiled, indulging her tendency to sometimes exaggerate, as doting grandmother’s often do. But she had proof.

YouTube Preview Image

I can’t describe what it was like to see this video of my son riding his scooter. I was shocked and amazed but I was also extremely proud and even somewhat relieved. Those feelings were reaffirmed when I took Mylo out on his scooter the next day and watched him ride away with my very own eyes.

The first week he scooted at just the park. By the second week he was out the door with Ergo in tow and scooting down some of Brooklyn’s quiet brownstone blocks. Now Mylo’s even scooting down the busy sidewalks of Court Street and Smith Street, with me chasing behind him.

He’s even gotten creative with Ergo. While at my inlaws’ house in Connecticut for the Thanksgiving holiday, we discovered a solution for our new addition who pulls like crazy on her lead. Mind you, Griffie is an eight pound dog.

Griffie channels her inner husky while pulling Mylo on his Ergo.

 

 

Chipotle Coming to Cobble Hill

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Few things in life make me so happy I can cry. My wedding day was one. The birth of my son was definitely another. And the recent discovery that a Chipotle Mexican Grill is coming to my neighborhood brought me to tears. Literally.

It’s not like there isn’t already a Chipotle close by. The one in Brooklyn Heights is a 10 minute walk and around the corner from our bank. We normally pay (no pun intended) the two a visit once a week. But now that we’re in Cobble Hill, the Heights is kind of a hike, especially in the winter when it’s cold and gets dark super-early. So the fact that the new one is going to be just up the street from us is more than convenient.

While doing errands on Friday, I glanced through the open door and saw stools and a maroon menu board. Though still under construction, the familiar decor was unmistakable. I tweeted Chipotle shortly after, told them how excited I was and they responded, “We hope to see you around the beginning of December!”

The new Chipotle is at 140 Court Street and will be adjacent to Trader Joe’s and the Brooklyn Wine Exchange. It stands to get a gut renovation seeing how it was home to a pet store for as long as I’ve lived here. When Beastly Bites’ rent went up last year, they moved out and opened up shop across the street. This small store front has sat empty for over a year!

Posing in front of the soon-to-be Chipotle on Court St., my husband gets a kick out of my love for their vegetarian burrito bowl.

It’s a brilliant move location-wise. Sure it’s a chain, but a Chipotle in Cobble Hill makes a whole lot more sense then the Five Guys Burger and Fries that opened up in July 2011 and didn’t even survive a year.

My childhood friend and upstairs neighbor likes to hate on Chipotle, mainly because I like it. He calls it “glorified fast food.” Maybe it is, but at least it’s healthy fast food.

Welcome to the neighborhood Chipotle!!

 

Halloween with Mylo at 2 Yrs.

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I couldn’t bring myself to dress Mylo up for his first Halloween. He wasn’t even three months old so the thought of putting him in a silly, albeit cute costume, seemed solely geared at pleasing no one but myself. It didn’t feel right.

But last year I did dress him up. Mylo was a lion and because of his full head of wavy hair it didn’t matter that he wouldn’t don the lion headpiece. We went to Cobble Hill Park up the road from where we live and watched a calypso band lead a gaggle of children through the park. I kept company with my mommy friends. We stood around gabbing, while admiring all the kids in their costumes.

Halloween 2011

This year, at just over two years old, Halloween with Mylo was a total game changer.

This Halloween was one of the first times I regretted not being more crafty. After earnestly scouring the Internet for creative ways to make a Little Prince costume, I gave up. Try searching for a pair of vintage, pistachio green bell bottoms for little boys and see how much luck you have. I assure you, not much.

So it was off to the pop-up Halloween shop on Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn. I considered Elmo, and Superman but cringed at all the warrior-esque type costumes. Also frustrating were the $30 costumes that had the headpiece and a prop but left the actual outfit, up to you. If I was going to be crafty, I certainly wasn’t going to be half-ass about it!

The cutest costumes there, were the ones for babies.  A little lobster. A baby bee. A pea in the pod! I was beginning to think I had really missed out on putting my baby in costume on his first Halloween.

But then I saw it. Batman. It was $22 and came complete with a black bodysuit and cape and mask. The latter of which I was scared he would want nothing to do with. I even bought myself ears and a tail so I could be Catwoman.

I knew I’d have to ease him into wearing Batman’s headpiece, but how? I removed it from its packaging and put it on myself. He looked at me inquisitively. But when I asked if he wanted to try it on, he took off running.

I Googled “Batman” from our iPad and showed him image after image of superhero in his cape and batpod motorbike. I had captured the boy’s interest for sure. A few minutes later, he was running around our apartment in his diaper and cape-mask. I don’t always know what I am doing, but I swear that moments like those reassure me that I’m not half-bad at this mom thing.

When Batman became cool for my kid.

Halloween arrived two days after Hurricane Sandy made landfall. Brooklynite’s who had been cooped-up for two days straight were eager to get out of the house and commiserate with others. The streets were teaming with children and parents in costume, me and my son included.

Halloween 2012

Mylo had the best time trick-or-treating and I had even more fun watching him. I was surprised by how quickly he got into the rhythm of  it all. Any time there was a crowd of kids going up one set of brownstone stairs he was right behind them. “Twick-O-Tweat” he’d say exuberantly, followed by a sometimes too-quiet “tank-you.”

There were funny moments, like the time he took a break and sat on someone’s stoop. Kids came up to him saying “trick-or-treat” and then began to help themselves to the candy in his pumpkin. Luckily Catwoman was right by his side and put an end to the invasion, quickly.

Weathering Superstorm Sandy in Brooklyn

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Following Saturday’s pumpkin picking and painting festivities, Mylo got sick. We were home bound with a fever-stricken child on the cusp of Superstorm Sandy, which was expected to hit the New York City area hard.

Sunday was business as usual in our house. Doing laundry coupled with watching football. When the storm projections became more serious we picked up some essentials from the grocery store and from the drugstore. I’ll admit, the lines out the door and the near-empty shelves had me a tad nervous. But the day rolled on… until Mayor Bloomberg terminated the NYC transit system. My husband was even told not to show up to work – this coming from a boss who rented a van and picked up all his employees during Hurricane Irene last year.

Our deck furniture all battened down!

Monday felt like the longest day ever. We hunkered down with Mylo who was on the mend. We didn’t take our eyes off the news coverage. We took the dogs for quick walks despite the hard winds and constant mist of rain. Luckily, my friend Scott lives upstairs with his wife and a toddler of their own, so when we got real stir crazy, they came over. We drank wine, played with the kids and waited out the storm. Together.

I communicated with my parents on Long Island up until about 5pm.

A mutual friend of mine and Scott’s who lives close to the water in DUMBO was evacuated by the NYC Fire Department after the lobby of his building began to fill with water. The transistors in the basement of the building across the way from them caught on fire. Chris, his girlfriend Julie and their dog, hitched a ride up the hill to our place.

We eventually put the kids to bed and then the “real” Sandy soiree began!

A few bottles of wine, a really good bottle of champagne and some 18 martinis later, we were having a blast. Other than the lights flickering a few times and the loss of TV and Internet, you wouldn’t have known their was a full-fledged hurricane happening right outside. Probably the only pain we felt from Sandy was a hangover the next day.

Friends since kindergarten and the seventh grade!

The morning after Sandy it was eerily quiet out on the streets. There were fallen trees as far as my eyes could see. Sirens wailed in the distance. Normally where there are cars, people were walking in the middle of the street. When we arrived at the bagel place on Court St. we found its massive awning laying in the middle of the street and the doors boarded closed.

Hurricane Sandy's aftermath on Bergen St.

After our unsuccessful bagel trip, we *tried* to get a table at the diner – turns out one of the few places open in our neighborhood – across the street. Just to put things into perspective a little: On a typical day, this diner has a few tables occupied at a time. The morning after Sandy, it was standing room only. When Jason told the host we were six adults and two kids, he pretty much turned us down on the spot and advised him to not bother waiting. Ahh, if only I had the time to write THAT up on Yelp!

Mylo and Olivia walking to the diner the morning after Sandy.

While Monday felt like the longest day ever as we waited and waited for Sandy to make landfall, Tuesday, which was largely spent trying to connect with family, felt even longer. Neither me, Scott or Chris, who’s parents weathered the storm in our hometown, could reach any of them. Jason also lost touch with his father in Westchester.

I didn’t hear from my folks until Wednesday, a whole two days after the storm. They lost power, had a ton of downed trees in their yard pulling down power lines, and had to drive around town just to find an unreliable cell phone connection. And then came the mile-long lines for gasoline to fill their generator. They likened my safe, hilly, waterfront town with no traffic lights, road detours and tons of downed trees to that of a “war zone.”

Superstorm Sandy nailed some and not others. We were virtually unaffected by it while my folks have been royally stressed and inconvenienced by it. But there are others whose lives have been forever changed by the storm. When I really think about it, I am grateful. Beyond grateful.