New York, New York

This is like going back in time, but I wanted to write up our trip to New York with an 11-month old, because overall I think we did a great job despite a number of setbacks. It was a three-day trip that we both took a day off work for (gasp!) to fly out late Thursday night. The plan was to have all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then fly back Monday afternoon.

Thursday afternoon our school had a pep rally, and while I was there I got a text message that our flight was delayed six hours. What was supposed to get us there at 8 p.m. Thursday was now listed for approximately 2 a.m. Friday morning now.  So that wasn't going to work.

Online, I used Delta's emergency rescheduler to change our flights to a Friday morning flight at 8 a.m., thinking that would still give us most of Friday to go around NYC. We had some ideas of what to do, but not any firm plans (other than the ballet on Sunday afternoon) so it wasn't a huge deal to lose a night. The hotel even refunded us. Great.

Raptor-Son does amazing on the flight. He's hooked on to his mom's chest, and spends the 90 minutes in the air alternately napping and nursing. Except as soon as the wheels touch down in New York (literally the moment the tires hit the runway) he leans into the aisle and barfs just everywhere. Happily the guy across the aisle was both a pilot and the father of a 10-month old, so he couldn't have been cooler, helping us get cleaned up and off the plane. We head to a bus that will take us to the subway, since La Guardia is inexplicably not connected to the subway already, and the Wee Man barfs on the bus again. Now we are worried. He throws up once more on the subway, just to complete the travel trifecta, and then we get him to the hotel.

I should mention here that we visited Brooklyn on the coldest weekend in a century. The temperatures outside where in the single digits, so on top of the vomiting we've also got him wrapped in winter coat, furry hood, big mittens, fuzzy boots, and he's in the carrier under my winter coat. So he's probably also overheating, but he holds it together till we get to the hotel then falls asleep. After a phone call to our pediatrician, I walk to a CVS and buy a thermometer to watch his temperature (which was just a little elevated, probably from the wardrobe) and some Children's Tylenol. He sleeps for a long time, and basically wakes up feeling much better, although we decide to keep him in the hotel room for the rest of the day and not venture out. He was pretty okay with this, and decided to explore his very not-childproofed hotel room.

By bedtime, we put him to sleep on the bed, and I walked across the street to get pizza. We had pizza from this restaurant twice, because it was so cold going outside and it was right next to the hotel.

The next morning we took him to breakfast, got dressed, and decided to head out. We spent all morning at the Manhattan's Children's Museum, where he played with blocks, climbed over a bunch of foam cubes, and had a great time. We had lunch at a deli nearby, and loaded him up in the carrier to go to the Museum of Modern Art, where he promptly fell asleep in front of Andy Warhol's soup cans.

The next morning we took him to the Natural History Museum, and let him run around a little there. It wasn't as child-friendly as we'd hoped, but he had a good time (and I got to see some dinosaur fossils) so we were mostly pretty happy. We ate downstairs in the cafeteria (a screaming nightmare of grumpy parents, overstimulated toddlers, and poor life choices) and headed to the Lincoln Center for the ballet.

Raptor-Mom is a big fan of the New York City Ballet, and I bought her tickets for Christmas to see a show while we were in New York. My plan was to have the Little Guy sleep through the performance, so we could enjoy it. When we got there, I was told we'd need a $25 ticket for him to sit on our lap through the show, which we bought, and went inside. He was already down, at least until the music started playing. He popped his head up and started to holler, so I grabbed the diaper bag and headed for the lobby. The two of us spend the next two hours walking around the lobby, singing songs, listening to podcasts, and exploring the very nice lobby of the Lincoln Center.

The next morning, we met my friend Chris who moved to Brooklyn a couple years ago, had some giant bagels, and headed for La Guardia to fly home. After nearly getting lost trying to find our terminal (seriously, never fly to/through La Guardia) we were headed back to Cincinnati. Fortunately, Raptor-Son did a great job on the plane, even though he didn't fall asleep this time, but he also didn't barf everywhere, so we called it a win.

Definitely learned somethings about traveling with infants (bring extra/waterproof clothes to wear) and overall we had a great time. The next week I flew to San Francisco, which was much more calm.