This week the temperature climbed above 30 for the first time in three years, or some shit like that. No, it wasn’t actually three years, but it sure felt like an eternity since anyone was able to walk outside without fear of frostbite. And so, my winter baby is getting his first real taste of the sun. It’s going to be hard to quash his zombie ways. Drew reacts to the sun the way most people react to Richard Simmons, Dick Cheney and Amy Winehouse: he squishes up his face, shakes his head back and forth, and makes guttural noises of discontent. I suppose the smart thing to do would be to break him in slowly, but I am so starved for sun that I insisted on immersing us in it All Day Long.
We took a total of three walks today and considering that Drew eats every three hours, that means I hustled him out the door each time he was fed, burped and changed, without a minute to spare. At 7:30 I realized we were out of milk–and mama needs her coffee–so off we went in the Baby Bjorn to the corner store.
At 11:30 I heaved him into the stroller and we embarked on an adventure to the next town over. In the charming village of Pelham we strode past old fashioned hardware and stationery stores, mom and pop cafes with unassuming names like “Joe’s Coffee Shop” and construction workers breaking from picking up supplies at the nearby lumber yard. Pelham is the kind of village where the UPS guy stands around chatting with the owner of the pizza shop, where old biddies shuffle down the sidewalk with their walkers and men who look like they ride with the Hells Angels on the weekend hold doors open for those biddies. It’s unassuming and completely delightful, no airs or pretenses, just real people going about their days, frequenting the same family-owned stores they’ve been coming to since they were kids. It’s the kind of town I want Drew to appreciate, when he’s not fast asleep in his stroller, shielding his delicate eyes from the blinding sun.
Tags: motherhood, New York City life, winter
