With Regan and Jane safely and excitedly ensconced at camp for the week, Poppy and Gammy
I did a truly pitiful job of taking photos on this trip (much harder when there was just the two of us!) but we had a very, very special time. It met our goals of spending some good quality time together and getting a bit of a preview of this wonderful city. Luckily I had no grand illusions that we would tackle it all in two days.
Meredith knew I had a surprise for her but she didn't know what it was. Once we got the airport she said she still didn't want to know where we were going (but I accidentally let it slip when we were in Chicago waiting for our connecting flight...).
We walked, subway-ed and taxied ourselves into the ground but had a great time doing it. We were clearly not meant to hit the museums as we had three failed attempts! Our first was full! We first had our hair done at Drybar (I had really wanted to check that out since Jake came home after a trip to NY telling me about it), a fun trip to the Washington Square playground, a catch up with a former Bain coworker who I hadn't seen in probably 10 years...., a fun lunch at Eatily, another playground stop, a unique-for-us dash in the rain (which I'm blaming on causing my distraction that took us on the wrong subway!) but we still made it to our mother/ daughter tea party at Alice's Tea Cup and *then* a trip to a business school roommate's home to meet her 3 year old daughter (what a treat!). We planned to hit the Natural Museum together but as you can see from our ambitious day so far, Meredith was completely beat and fell asleep at their apartment and begged to go back to the hotel. So we walked Molly and Martha to the museum and we hit the subway for an hour or so of relaxing....
...and then Jake came in to our hotel room and really, really surprised Meredith. At that point we had been away from Jake for a couple weeks and Meredith thought we had another two weeks to go. She asked me everyday how many days until she gets to see Daddy. How fun to see her face when Jake walked in!
We had a lovely dinner with Cousin Andrew (where Jake ran into a New Zealand colleague from work who just happened to be in NY for pleasure - now *that* is a small world!). We can also rename Cousin Andrew to Concierge Andrew as he is definitely my personal restaurant concierge while there. How wonderful! And he travels to us so that we didn't have to travel to him! What a host! Good company, too. He even schlepped back over to our neighborhood for a great breakfast before he had to go earn his keep at work. Thanks, Andrew!
The next morning we sent Jake off to his work meetings (the *real* purpose of his trip to NY that just happened to work out really well for Meredith and me) and Meredith and I started another busy day. We were old hats at the subway by then and headed up to Central Park. Our plan had been to take the carriage ride from the bottom of Central Park up towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art (we've read "The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" and I couldn't wait to experience this with Meredith). Well, the carriage rides don't really work that way so it ended up doing a loop right back where we started. In an effort to be "efficient," I thought we would hit the stuff we wanted to do in that area and then go to the Met after lunch. So off to F.A.O. Schwartz, the American Girl store (truly, Meredith's highlight of the trip) and to the Plaza to check out where Eloise lived and have lunch in their fun food court in the basement.
The execution almost went swimmingly with the exception that although I looked at the addresses beforehand and even though FAO was 767 5th Ave and American Girl was 609 5th Ave - which to my Chicago grid address mind sounds like they should be 1 1/2 blocks apart when in reality they were 11 blocks apart. That's a lot of walking for a little six year old. But we did it there and the 11 blocks back to the Plaza (so much for my "efficient" itinerary. After a great lunch we were then off to the Met. Except that once we were almost there, my sweet 6-year old crashed hard and just... wanted... to.... take... a... nap. We had a long night ahead of us so I decided that she might have something there. So museum thwarted once again and back to our hotel.
We met Jake for an early dinner (Mexican!) and then Meredith and I were off once again - this time to Times Square and The Lion King. She is deathly afraid of characters so I got us seats in the balcony since I knew they used the aisles in the main floor. It was a good call. She was entranced and stayed awake for the whole thing. What a magical night!
I had one more museum in my informal itinerary. We needed to leave for the airport around noon the next day and there was a well-rated children's art museum near our hotel in SoHo. The plan was to have breakfast, get packed and then hit the museum from 10-12 before grabbing a taxi. Except that it opens at noon on Wednesdays. Doh. Three strikes on the museums - yikes!
Failure at the museum hitting or not, our trip to NY was a big hit. We met our criteria of having fun, having good one-on-one time together and giving Meredith a little introduction of this great city so that she'll look forward to going back sometime.
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| Getting pampered at mother/ daughter salon trip |
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| New Drybar 'dos |
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| Giant 1/2 globe at Washington Square Park. Meredith *finally* got to the top after a lot of effort! |
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| Catching up with Patricia after too many years. She was in NY visiting her daughter at NYU |
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| Lunch at Eatily. I think I got one piece of this pizza and Meredith was happy to chow the rest |
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| Mere helping fix my coffee just right at Alice's Tea Cup. They give little girls "fairy dust" as they come in. Just a warning if you go there, it is a LOT of fairy dust. We were picking it out of Mere's hair for days! |
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| Their signature kids' dessert - s'mores pie. I think Meredith needed *all* of her sisters to help her eat this - she ate about 20% of it. |
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| Visiting Martha (my friend) and Molly. Mere and Molly loved finding a fellow thumb-sucker |
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| We loved our hotel (Crosby Street Hotel) in SoHo. Just physically being in SoHo made me feel a wee bit cooler - what a neighborhood! |
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| The wonderful window in our room overlooking fun and charming Crosby Street |
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| A surprise reunion with Dad after more than two weeks apart. One happy girl (and dad) |
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| Meredith made a fun looking sleeping nook in the closet with the window seat pillow. |
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| Concierge Andrew meets us for another yummy meal |
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| Central Park time |
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| FAO Schwartz |
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| Famous giant piano at FAO Schwartz (Meredith needed her sisters there as she wasn't interested in doing it on her own) |
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| Trip highlight for Mere - the American Girl doll store (and this is Mere's doll she has at home) |
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| Eloise at the Plaza |
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| Times Square |
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| The Lion King |
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