A Whole Year

The end of October marked a year since we moved onto 86th Street. A whole year in Manhattan.

I would be lying if I said it been without challenges. There were more than a few moments that we were ready to throw in the towel, call uncle and move back to the midwest. But there were times that I absolutely loved living in this city and calling home. And home it had become.

Most of the challenges that had me wanting to move were challenges that are city-agnostic and would have been there wherever we were living.  Well, except for the cost of living, that is pretty city-specific.

I started out the year of living here pondering if we could ever move somewhere else after being here and if we could raise or kids here. Somewhere in the middle, I just wanted it all to be easy and to have a house in the suburbs.  Then by the time we were at the year point, I was used to the small space living thing and still in love with the city so completed the circle back to pondering if we could raise our kids here. 

In many ways I identify with being a 'new yorker.' I typically talk pretty fast and can be quite loud. I walk fast. I am quite skilled at ignoring the crowds and just doing my thing; don't ask me about what happened on my subway commute unless you want to hear about the book I am reading. I have been wearing a predominately black wardrobe for years. There of course aspects of me that are not all 'new york' and are pure-midwest-country-raised-corn-fed.

Either way I like it here. I like it alot. I am very happy calling this my home and am pretty much content. Sure, I would like a bigger apartment but I have friends on facebook talking about how their family of four has outgrown their large, surburban house... So I think on some level you decide what you can live with. And I can live with the small space if it means another year in Manhattan.

And were else will I see someone walking around a financial district with a cat on their shoulder? I no longer get that disoriented/lost feeling when I step out of a new stop off the subway. But I still feel all giddy about a beautiful day in the park.

We sometimes talk about what if we didn't take the opportunity to move here. I am happy that we did and am thrilled that I am calling it home.

October Everyday

October was such a good month. Not just because we had so much fun picking apples and pumpkins, although those were great fun. But the everyday day was fun too. Jaime was at a very fun age and the weather was just perfect.

Jaime was definitely mobile at this point and he loved to explore. To make his day awesome all you had to do was pick up a blueberry muffin and head to the pinetum to check out the birds, squirrels and acorns. Or take a walk down a neighborhood street, that would make his day too.

I had Columbus day off from work and he ended up having a pretty terrible fever a couple of times so I had a few extra days at home with my monkey, we both loved that. We were able to get in a few mom-son playground dates.

Even though we are keeping Jaime's screen time to minimal, he loves computers. Try to pry him away from one if he gets on it. He got to visit my work and spent the whole time pretending to be an employee.

This kid has such a different set of sights for his early childhood from me...

And of course lots of baby girl growing was going on. I felt great, if quite tired.

It was simply a great month.

Second Trimester

The second trimester flew by. 

I did not jump back with my energy levels like I expected so I continued to take a lot of naps.  This might have been in part due to Jaime getting sick every other week and cutting a couple of molars.  At any rate, I felt pretty tired. 

The complications from the end of first trimester continued if I was being super active, running was out as it would then freak me out. So my exercise became chasing a toddler around and doing that new yorker thing of walking everywhere. 

I thought about doing the 'team green' thing again.  Dan was pretty against it.  I thought it might be helpful in preparing Jaime by being able to say brother or sister when talking about the baby.  So we decided to find out.

I just knew it was a girl this time.  I think my intuition was able to be more vocal because I let it.  With Jaime it was in the back of my mind but I wanted to be neutral and fair and not set up expectations (but honestly, I knew Jaime was a boy too). This time I was going to find out anyways so I let down my guard and I just knew it.  Dan also threw his money down on it being a girl.

All three of us went to the ultrasound.  And of course we were right, it is a girl!  A bouncy little girl that was already showing off that she was going to be an active one as well.  Everything looked healthy and on target. After our scare it was a relief to see the wiggly little baby doing its thing and looking all cute already.

At the ultrasound Jaime was pretty mesmerized for a while but when he was over it, he was over it.  He played peek a boo, ran the halls and tried to get into the cabinets.  The woman doing the ultrasound was great and took it in stride. 

We walked back across Central Park in the drizzle talking about raising a girl.

I felt movement early with the initial flutters and then soon enough the full on party time.  I forgot how sporadic the movement can be early on and would wonder if this little girl will be the calm one out of our bunch.  But as the trimester progressed so did her strength.  By my next ultrasound at 22 weeks she was packing quite the punch at 2 pounds and as active as can be.

During this time I started to freak out about our apartment and my job and child care and pretty much everything. 

I covered my dislike of maternity clothes in my previous pregnancy posts so I won't cover it again. But the feelings remained the same - maternity clothes suck. And don't tell me about how cute they are now and about the cute stuff at Target or the elusive H&M with a maternity section. Don't want to hear it. I think it was actually harder to get maternity clothes here versus Chicago as every Baby Gap I went to did not carry any and the Old Navy was always destroyed and for a neighborhood filled with kids there are no maternity boutiques.  A long trip on the subway to a store that I might or might not find anything after a week of commuting was not appealing.  So... I guess I did need to rant a little once again about maternity clothes.

I ran another race at the end of the second trimester.  I was feeling much better at this point but after not running for so long I wasn't really in running form. Baby and I achieved a PR on the one mile race.  

During the second trimester I ate a lot of potbelly's sandwiches, apples, salt n vinegar chips, chocoloate of any kind, tea and gelato. Lots of gelato. Also lots of yogurt.

Even though I was pretty tired, I kept up my pace and felt great. Both baby girl and I were happy, healthy and all that jazz.

Halloween

For halloween I spent an embarrasing amount of time figuring out Jaime's costume. I was pretty sure he should dress up as a dog since dogs are his fav. But all of the costumes were just so... something. A little bit too generic and baby-ish. So I repeatedly spent hours purusing the web trying to find something that would work. I cursed the fact that my sewing maching is in storage making a homemade costume not really an option.

But then I found a hack. And the night before Halloween I finished his little dog costume.

And he looked pretty stinkin cute. 

Botanic Garden's Haunted Pumpkin Garden

We made our way to the Bronx to check out the Haunted Pumpkin Garden at the New York Botanic Gardens and fell in love with the place. We left as members.

The children's garden had been transformed with a bazillion tricked out pumpkins. 

We wandered through toddler-style, taking it all in.

After the pumpkin garden we wandered around and found ourselves on the Ridge Trail. Amazing.

I love trails like that, they just put my stressed out mind in a peaceful state immediately.  After absorbing a little woodsiness it was time to head home. But we were sold on this place and made plans to come back soon.