Manhattan: A Day in Our Life

Last week while my husband was in California, my mom flew over to visit for a couple of days. She came just in time, after Bubba’s health scare and just in time to save me from a near total and complete meltdown. What is it about mother’s that they know to be there just in the knick of time? The trips opposite ways had been planned for months, and I was really looking forward to spending some good time with the kids for three days and nights straight. That didn’t happen, as I explained in this post, and what did happen was really a test of my strength. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, my mom got here and saved the day. We had a blast, as usual, but this day was particularly fun and exciting.

We loaded up the big stroller with the usual arsenal (lunches, diapers and water) and headed out of the apartment around 9:30AM. David Weinstein, who is a popular New York City children’s recording artist, was playing in Madison Square Park. Fortunately for us, we live pretty in the central part of Manhattan so it’s easy enough to get around to local events.

The park was full of children, parents and nannys dancing, singing and having a blast in the beautiful warm weather. We listen to David’s CD’s at home all the time, so the kids really got a kick of hearing songs they knew.

After the concert, we headed towards the Lower East Side to see if we could grab a bite to eat. Walking through Gramercy Park, it was hard to not notice all of the movie trailers and trucks lining the block. As it turns out, Kate Hudson was there filming her upcoming movie “Something Borrowed”.

Clearly, I moonlight as a paparazzi. *ahem*

After staying and gawking a bit, we ended up on the Lower East Side and decided to get Bubba’s hair buzzed. He has a lot of hair, and the poor child sweats profusely during the hot summers. This is something we’ve been wanting to do for a while, but just hadn’t gotten around to doing it. My mom has cut his hair in the past, I’ve cut his hair (disaster), and we’ve taken him to this sweet little pricey store a couple of blocks from us. They do a nice job and Bubba minds it less when he’s sitting in a little fire truck, plugged into Dora the Explorer and sucking on a lollipop. It is pricey though, and he has a ton of hair that grows really fast.

So we took him to a real-deal, old school barber shop. The kind where the barbers have thick accents and wear large gold chains and offer their clients real shaves. Where the walls are lined with mirrors, smells of shaving cream and hair tonics waft around your nose, and there’s just nearly enough room to walk.

It was really cool.

When we got there, they immediately took us in and placed a large board across the barber chair for Bubba to sit on. “Hop up, young man” the barber said to Bubba. I think he knew not to fuss or mess around, so up he hopped.

“Hey Jackie Boy, we’ll give you a lollipop if you’re good while we do this, OK? You’re a big boy, aren’t cha, Jackie Boy”. The barber next to us says “You said I could have a lollipop when I got my hair cut yesterday, and I didn’t get one!”. “Yeah?” Our barber said, “Well that’s cuz you cried like a girl”.

He did so great. I felt my chest get tight as I saw his beautiful hair fall to the ground. Here he is, a big boy.

They lathered his little nearly-bald head in a grown-up smelling hair gel (that I promptly washed out) and gave him his prize. Out we walked with our little man. My heart still aches a little looking at these pictures…I swear he looks as if he’s 6 months older and 5 pounds lighter.