New York City with Two Young Kids

Um... yeah.  Some of you might be thinking, "I could have told you that good idea was going to go bad."  We should have seen it coming.  Taking two children under the age of 3 to NYC in July is probably not the brightest thing we've ever done.  We just didn't think things through quite well enough. And I'm going to go ahead and throw my husband under the bus because it was his idea.  But on the flip side, there were four adults with 7 college degrees between us - someone should have known better!  

Last summer we were living in eastern Connecticut and my parents came to visit for several weeks.  We decided that we would do a getaway trip to NYC for the weekend.  Tim and I would leave on Friday afternoon and spend two nights, then my parents would come into the City on Sunday with the kids and would stay two nights themselves.  It seemed to be the perfect solution to all of us getting to go to NYC.  I think we were thinking that Mark would love the train ride into the city and central park and Times Square.  And he did, but it was definitely not worth all the trouble we encountered.  

This was before the kids joined us - when it was still a getaway!

First off, NYC in July is hot and crowded.  We knew we didn't want to drive our own car into the City so we all took the train.  So, my parents got the kids up before their usual wake time to take a fairly early train ride in.  But when you don't have car seats and you have a stroller you are pretty limited to walking.  We probably could have done the subway, but none of us was familiar with it and that seemed pretty daunting with the stroller.  So it was a many block hike from Grand Central Station to Times Square, where their hotel was and where they were dropping off their luggage.  (Yeah, there's two kids, a stroller AND luggage involved.)  

After my parents dropped off their luggage we ate a very crowded and overpriced brunch that was not altogether pleasant with 2 young kids along - as most meals out are with little ones.  We headed up to Central Park.  Once again, probably a mile+ with a stroller and crowds.  We got there and Mark played on the playground.  He really enjoyed it, but it was just a playground.  We had 3 of those within half a mile of our home in Connecticut.  He did get to ride the Merry-go-Round with my dad.  That was a highlight for both of them because it was Mark's first ride on one and my Dad was so proud to take him.  His Papaw had taken him on his first ride when he was Mark's age.  

Luke was asleep before we ever got to Central Park.

Cute - even with a leash on!  (And yes, I was one of those people who never thought I'd use a leash for my children - before I actually had children.  Needless to say, I've changed my stance.)

But as you can see from all of our faces, it was really hot that day and we were hungry and tired.  I thought we should go to Serendipity for a snack.  It looked really close on the map.  (It wasn't though.)  We made the trek many, many blocks to the restaurant to find out that there is a 2+ hour wait to get ice cream.  Um... no thanks.  I'm sure the frozen hot chocolate is good, but we had a train to catch.  We saw a candy shop that had soft serve so we stopped and had a cone.  

At this point it's too late to do anything else, so we headed to Grand Central.  Tim and I had left our bags at our hotel and I hopped in a cab to pick them up and meet him at the station.  I definitely got the better end of that bargain.  As he was walking Mark got to end of the ice cream cone he was a mess and the cone was mangled.  Tim threw it away.  Hot, tired, over-stimulated Mark went into melt-down mode.  This attracted the attention of a homeless man who follows them for 15 blocks asking what's wrong with him and making suggestions on how to fix the tantrum.  Kinda scary!

We finally met back up and boarded our train.  It took 2+ hours and one change of trains, plus another 30 minutes in the car before we were finally home.  All that for a glorified trip to the park.  It was definitely the most tiring end to a weekend getaway we'd ever had.  Next time I will definitely find a sitter to watch the boys while my parents meet us for a day in the City.  Although Mark did ask me if we could go to Central Park again for months following that trip, so maybe somebody did have fun that day.  Here's to making memories!