Aging Right Alongside Rockstars

Friday Mr. Banks and I traveled to Central Park for the last of Pavement’s NYC shows on their reunion tour. The show was awesome. It was a beautiful September night in the city with an insanely good set list. It was one of those experiences that lifts your spirits and makes you want to raise a glass to the good life of family, fun and memories. They even had a wine truck selling tall glasses of pinot noir if you’re not one that can stomach Coors Light in the can.

Better yet, they started at 8 and we were out of there by 10 pm which makes a mid-thirties mama happy. I can only sustain that good-feelin’ vibe for so long before I’m tired, and my feet hurt, and I want to put on my lounge pants.

We couldn’t help but notice that the other concert goers were the typical Pavement fans from way back when. They were just 10 years older, like us. Let me tell you, we weren’t the only ones checking our phones just in case we missed an emergency text from the babysitter.

In The City

Evidence of our fun roaming the Upper West Side for three days.

Off the Grid.

“Should we take the wine into the bathroom?,” asked Mr. Banks last night at 8:30 pm.

The first night we were in the hotel, Mr. Banks had to stay late at the office so he didn’t get back to the room until Lolo was safely lulled into a deep sleep. In the meantime, I managed to entertain myself on the laptop in complete silence and darkness while she slept in her matchstick-sized hotel crib. (Bad mama. I didn’t bring the pack-n-play because there was just too much going on before we left the house in a mad rush. Yes, there is a reason every baby book says to avoid hotel cribs at all costs.) But, our system worked out great. Mr. Banks and I ate dinner in the dark but were able to have a conversation while she slept not 8 feet away from us.

Well, last night he arrived back to the room right as Lolo was saying “sweet dreams” at 7pm and she didn’t close her eyes until nearly 10pm. This city already has her blood pumping with energy and chutzpah. Knowing that Mama and Papa were so close to her and completely awake was just too much. She tried. She put her head down on the pillow for five minutes and then peeked out from the curtain I have draped around the crib with a devilish smile. For the next three hours, we tried everything. We ate in silence in the dark and reminded her that it was bedtime. We took our food and wine in the bathroom (oh yes we did) so she would settle down in peace. There’s a TV in the bathroom so it wasn’t all that weird. I tried to lay down with her in bed. Nothing worked. She played and sang for close to three hours, and I just kept reminding myself, “This is a vacation. It’s okay to go off schedule.” We opened the bathroom door at one point to see what she was singing and heard, “Shake you tail, flap you wings and stomp you feet!” over and over again.

Needless to say, she’s having a blast in the city and has adjusted to life quite well off the grid of our normal life. The entirety of our day is spent finding food, playing at the park and walking the dog in the park. Wash and repeat. She’d prefer if we could skip the walking the dog part but is content to watch a little extra TV each morning.

While it’s been an adventure and wonderful to see her excitement over the city, I’m looking forward to being able to heat food again.

Blanket of Lead

It’s as ominous as it sounds.

The neighbors directly next to us, which means 12 feet away, are having their house sanded down to the bone today before repainting. In a town where all the houses were built before 1930, this means there is a high probability of lead-laden, death dust. Of course, in the “panties-in-a-bunch” kind of town we live in, there are an abundant collection of laws related to this specific act of lead paint removal. And, by law, any house painting company has to tent the house being sanded with tarps, use HEPA-filter sanding machines, know all the state laws on lead paint, etc. But, that’s not good enough for me and my paranoia. They are also covering all of my windows with plastic, covering half the house in a giant tarp, and we’re evacuating the house for three days. (Yes, I inserted myself quite well into my neighbor’s home improvement project.)

Right now, I am sitting on my hotel room couch in the dark and typing this post while Lolo sleeps after a long day of establishing ourselves on the Upper West Side. Soon, I will fork over the $12.95 fee to connect to the Internet so I can keep my readers up to date on all our adventures like sitting down to a nice dinner at 5:30 tonight with Lolo, taking one sip of my wine and then hearing “I’m all done” after she had exactly one bite of her penne with meat sauce.

We hit the city just after lunch, sent Mr. Banks off to work, and didn’t stop until bedtime. If we weren’t walking and talking and looking for parks, we were walking the dog and relearning the art of getting an animal that hates the city to pee on cement. I’m consciously taking a lesson from my free-spirited daughter and learning to enjoy the ride. It’s not really a vacation but we’ve decided to treat it like one.

All she needs is a dance floor

We took an impromptu (kudos to me for allowing spontaneity to be unplanned) trip into the city even though it’s still pretty chilly here to look at a furniture store we’ve been lusting after. Once off the train and subway, we finally made it to the Union Square area in search of lunch before we dove into shopping. Along the way, we found a small, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that looked pretty spacious and empty which is key to eating with a toddler. Before our fajita order had made it to the kitchen, Lolo was finished with the lunch I had packed and was ready to roll. Her attention span with high chairs is limited to their actual function. If she’s not eating, she’s not sitting.

I saw signs leading upstairs to their second floor bar which I knew would be deserted at lunchtime. I thought I’d let her burn some energy while we waited for our food. Well, it was her lucky day. There was an entire bar and dance floor at her disposal with leftover St. Patrick’s Day decorations hanging everywhere. Better yet, she could stand on the window sill at the front of the building and watch all the crazy New Yorkers, taxis and bikes pass by. She was in heaven and in her mind, had discovered the real reason for coming into the city, playing at this bar. Who needs museums?

Matt and I traded off watching the bean upstairs while we each at our fajitas alone downstairs. Full of chips and grilled meat, we made our way to the furniture store where it was not as easy to manage the wile gremlin. She managed to terrorize the store for an hour before we decided to abandon ship and head home. We explored two floors of the four floor store but my attention was definitely divided between shopping and thwarting Lolo’s plans of disassembling store displays. Needless to say, she had an absolute blast.

This is her new "smile" for cameras.

High on pure energy and cheap, themed decor.