December Highlights

What a month. Full of family, friends, and fun Christmas events in the city! We enjoyed visits from both sets of grandparents in honor of Mya joining us! We (mainly Logan…) took them all over the city, showing them some of our favorite places, and finding new favorite places. We visited Santa Land at Macy's with both of them which was a blast. The boys reluctantly sat on Santa's lap, but with lots of jolly talk about Rudolph and "visiting us" they opened up and asked him for a "gun that shoots jelly" (one of the misfit toys of course!) and Spiderman.

When Mya and I did join in on the excursions around the city, we bundled her up in her pink fuzzy bear suit and onto my chest in her sling. I still received scoldings from every old lady I passed on the street for bringing a baby out in the cold, even though I assured them that she was sweating in there!

As you may know, Manhattan was hit with a blizzard the week after Christmas! We hear this was quite the hassle for those trying to get in and out of the city, but for us who were snug in our apartment, it was fantastic! The snow piled up on our windowsills and made us feel like we were buried in it:). Because we walk to everything we need in our neighborhood, we were still able to get to everything essential for being snowed in (like coffee, soup, and cider) with little difficulty - trekking over snowbanks made by the faithful snowplows, and watching taxis trying to brave the streets. The snow really was like a blanket that quieted the city for a few days. Logan took the boys to the corner opposite ours to play in the snow - making huge snowballs and marveling at how fun it is to sink your shoes into the powdery goodness and breathe "dragon breath" at each other. No one contacted our super to request that the sidewalk in front of our building be cleared, so we played there too and it felt like we had a mini front yard :).

We also enjoyed a visit from the McClungs for our first New Years in the city!!! It didn't seem right to spend New Years Eve apart after so many years of spending it together, so Cassie surprised Mike with a trip to NY for Christmas. It was easily some of the best times we’ve had since being here! We all squeezed into our apartment for a few days and relaxed together, as the kids played around and got increasingly noisy until we took them all to Central Park for a snowball fight.

No, we did not got to Times Square to watch the ball drop, but we could hear the fireworks that were set off there at midnight out the window of our apartment, while watching them on the TV :). We did, however, watch the documentary "King of Kong" (which was RIVETING to say the least), and ate chocolate fondue -warm and cozy to ring in the new year!

She's the sweetest!!!

It has been a whirlwind of a month (december, that is...) so sorry to all who have been hankering for more pictures of Mya! Here are a few of our recent favorites.

Check out the rest of them.

The Gentry Clan becomes 5!

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Halloween in the City!

I figured that since Thanksgiving has now come and gone, it is high time that I post some pictures of our Superhero buddies and their Halloween adventures!!! I must warn you, this is a long post... but it includes pictures! Finally!

Eli LOVES Halloween, so I was feeling a lot of pressure to deliver a super-fun halloween extravaganza here in the city so that he would not miss the fun of past years in Austin as much... As it was, I felt like there were a lot of unknowns surrounding this holiday in particular - knowing trick-or-treating in our upper east side neighborhood was bound to look differently than the WB, but not really knowing what it would look like...

Apparantly there are some streets in our neighborhood lined with brownstones that host trick or treaters, but they are flooded with people (and lots of stairs). We also heard that some apartment buildings have sign-ups for the residents who want to have kids from that building trick-or-treat at their doors, but our apartment has no real central messaging center (and it's filled with non-families anyway), so we assumed that nothing was going on at our place. And, to top it off, Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, which is a "work day/night" for Logan so he would not be joining us for the festivities and I was a little nervous about trekking all over the city with the buddies by myself... Oh yeah, and it was supposed to be cold - so they were going to have to wear their heavy coats over their costumes, virtually canceling out their costume all together. And where were we going to carve our pumpkin? Where would we put that said pumpkin after it was carved?

I ended up finding all kinds of activities and events around the city on the website: mommypoppins.com, and put together a schedule of events from Thurs-Sun of going to parks and parties and parades and all that fun stuff. Some things were worthwhile (like the pumpkin festival in CP) and others were not (the party in John Jay park- the biggest attraction was throwing a rubber chicken through a hoop for twizzlers... what...), but I figured we might as well check it all out so we knew what we would want to do again in the future!

Here they are in all their glory...

Eli throwing the rubber chicken through the hoop...

Yes, our stroller seats 3 super heros at once! And conveniently houses their weapons!

Here kids are eating the most delightful quesadillas from a street vendor at the Pumpkin Festival in Central Park - SO delicious... especially because good tex-mex quite hard to find...

Just in case you did not already know, the boys were Spiderman and Batman for Halloween :). They had already been wearing their costumes at least once a day for the entire month preceeding the big day, but I would usually restrict the costumes to the apartment use only. They were more than excited to finally show them off outside, and had an instant bond with any other toddler/young child in a superhero costume. They and the other child would yell at each other from across the block, or the park, "hey, Ironman!" "hey, Flash!" "hey spiderman!" and then pretend to fly off or to jump kick an imaginary bad-guy or something else super-hero-ish... One of the most fun things about having kids in the city is that they don't have the "social graces" yet to know that you are supposed to be discrete and ignore other people.

(our new friend, Ironman who we met at Central Park)

We also got invited by one of the families at the church to trick-or-treat at their building - which ended up being a blast! There were 5 families - 10 kids (7 walkers) - who were part of the party. We met up at the host's apartment at 5:00, where we got the list of apartments welcoming trick-or-treaters and then all traipsed through the halls and down the flights of stairs together, corralling kids and instructing them to "take just one piece of candy from the abandoned bowl" and "make sure you say thank you to the nice lady" and "no, you may not eat any of your spoils until we arrive back at the apartment" and other such common halloween rules that must be abided by in order to have a grand ol' time. We were done visiting all the apartments by 5:45ish, at which point we all rendezvoused back at the host's apartment for the cider and snacks, where the children were allowed one piece of candy to eat while sitting politely at the table, thank you very much. We all chatted and played around for a while, and we all left in time for a peaceful bedtime routine to be accomplished. I was home by 6:30 - even after leaving my phone at the apartment and having to go back for it!

Eli, and friends, enjoying being squished into the elevator all together...

Trick or Treat!!!

From top Left: Cory Vassar (fairy), Wells Emerick (Viking), Kate Sullivan (snow white)

Cooper Schleef (fireman), Judson Vassar (spiderman), Eli (spiderman), and Cal (batman)

The boys LOVED it. It was perfect for their little legs to not have to walk for blocks and blocks up and down stairs and in and out of strollers, and for them not to have to wear heavy coats, and for them to all be together! We really enjoyed being with the other families and sharing the experience together, and we procured the perfect amount of candy :).

I, however, did feel slightly like a red-neck at the end of the night remembering fondly the craziness of trick-or-treating around the WB and the rollicking festivities at the Casa de Lopez afterwards - which always included a carved watermelon and all the candy you could stuff in the kids mouths and the inevitable crash on the couch by 10:30 ish (if the kids had not suffered a complete melt down prior to that...) and the free flowing root beer and the adults in costume and the occasional stray dog or two (or was the 4th of July?) and on and on... I was only consoled by the fact that the Austin party was pared down this year, and by the fact that, oh yeah, I get to live in what I think is the coolest city in the world... but I really really missed you guys deeply and acutely!

So after we got home, I let the boys have a few more pieces of candy and let them stay up late to hang out with me and play... don't tell my new friends here in the city...

The Small Dog Rebellion

It seems like most people have a dog in the city, but because space is limited (reason #1 why we did not bring Zoe – thanks to the Engstroms for giving her such an amazing home!!!), most of those people have small dogs – yorkies, toy poodles, shitzus, terriers, pugs, and french bulldogs seem to be the favorites. It is quite the commitment to have a dog, with the hefty pet deposits (our apartment charges one month’s rent… reason #2 why we did not bring Zoe), the poop scraping off of the sidewalk, and I hear walking dogs in the winter is quite a beating.

I’m wondering if because of this commitment, owners are more committed to the relationship with the dog – and by that I mean that most owners tend to treat these dogs as children. This includes strollers for their dogs, frequent conversations with their dogs, unrequited explanations for the passerby of why their dog is doing such-and-such, dogs (and cats) in little suitcases or large purses for easy travel on the subways and busses, and I even saw one athletic looking woman taking a brisk walk in Central Park with her dog in a sling. Really. I rather enjoy this part of culture here in Manhattan and am kind of sad that I don’t get to participate in it – if just for the hilarity of it all.

These small, pampered dogs do not seem to appreciate this love and affection that their owners so lavishly bestow upon them. Out of all the things that I get to observe in the city on a regular basis, one of my favorites is what Logan and I fondly like to call the “small dog rebellion”. For example:

PULLING with all their little might on their leash in front and to the side of their owner – to where it looks like their collar will surely slip right down and off their skinny fuzzy bodies, and their 3in legs are moving so fast they look like a blur. In this instance, their owner walks with giant steps trying to keep up, leaning backwards lest they be propelled forwards, and sometimes frantically pulling the unsuspecting dog out of the way of an oncoming stroller that would mean certain death upon impact.

SNIFFING incessantly at some unknown substance on the ground or wall of a building and not giving in to the polite requests “what are you doing? Lets keep walking sweetheart…”, rubbing their noses and then entire bodies on that aforementioned spot while their owners face grows more and more disgusted.

WAITING, patiently, as their owner becomes impatient, for a certain doorman to bring them a treat. The dogs remember every building where there is a friendly doorman, and will sit or lay down on the sidewalk in front until the doorman notices and rewards their good memory. Maybe the more surprising thing is that their owners in this situation are perfectly content to wait with their dogs for this treat, chuckling and explaining to everyone passing by why they are not continuing on their brisk walk, but blocking the entire sidewalk instead.

And – for my very absolute favorite – STOPPING. Absolutely stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, and refusing to walk any more. I’m not sure if the dog is just exhausted and feels as if it cannot go on, or if they have decided that they do not like the direction this walk is taking, and is choosing to give a clear sign that they do not approve. Either way, they win this battle every time. The embarrassed owners of larger dogs in this situation resort to cooing, “good girl, lets keep going, you can do it, that’s a good girl” while the dog lays there motionless. And equally embarrassed small dog owners make the same non-commands to their dogs while tugging them along, trying not to look like they are dragging and scraping their 5lb pet across the pavement. The dog itself plants its four tiny paws firmly and tucks its tail, and often will lie down on its side so that it looks like it is being treated inhumanely. This rebellion seems especially ironic to me when the dog is being walked by a professional dog walker, which you know is being paid not a small amount to walk this dog in the middle of the day while their hardworking owner is away.

I suspect that these types of rebellion are what fuel the stroller/purse/sling business here in the city.

Apartment Living

The population of our apartment building is pretty interesting – our neighbors are a mix of young single professionals and elderly singles who have lived in the building “forever”. I discovered the probable reason for this is that there are mostly one bedroom units in the building, and only a few two bedroom units, which we are living in. I figured that it would be easier to meet people and connect with them if they were in the same life stage as us (a young family), but I am enjoying this unexpected twist. Because we are the only family in the building, we are memorable (for better or worse) so as we are trying hard to know and remember the people we meet, they remember us just by default – we’re the ones with the kids.

One of the issues I was anticipating was the inevitable loudness of my children being a real inconvenience to my neighbors… it does not seem to be a problem. Most of the people are out of the building all day long at work, and then the kids go to bed early enough that there’s no disturbance. The only time I worry is Saturday and Sunday mornings where surely my friends in 2C, E, and F(and especially 1D) are wanting to sleep-in. I don’t feel so terrible about this though, because the people in these apartments tend to party into the night – which we can clearly hear – so it seems like a decent trade off to me J.

A few gracious gifts that the Lord sovereignly gave us in this building that I had no idea I would truly need, are an elevator and laundry in the basement. These things were not on our list of must-haves when we were apartment hunting, but I can’t imagine how I would make it without them! We’re only on the second floor, but still, that one flight of stairs is too much to carry my clumsy stroller down. And then with carrying groceries or various packages – the elevator has become a staple in our existence.

When I lived in Brooklyn the summer before I got married, our apartment did not have laundry in the building, so my roommates and I would lug our one bag of laundry to the closest laundry mat (about 4 blocks) and leave it there for the time it took for it to wash, then come and do the dryer transfer and wait. We would have to make a morning or afternoon of it in order to get it done, but it wasn’t too inconvenient.

I cannot imagine doing that now – as a family of 4. It would absolutely be too much work for us (carrying 6 loads weekly: darks, lights, whites, kids, towels, sheets/duvets ßalternating either the kids and ours each week) while pushing the stroller; or requiring Logan to use on of his days off to get it done – a hassle for him and a pretty lame option for me and the kids. I’m sure we would resort to sending the laundry out to be done, which would be very convenient (even with my current laundry situation) but they charge by the pound of laundry, so I’m sure we would at least double what we’re currently paying on our basement machines. To add to the blessing, our laundry is only $1.50 a load – apparently the cheapest around, everyone else we talk to are paying $2.50 a load.

When we came for the weekend and had a crash course in securing Manhattan real estate, we applied for 2 apartments that we much preferred to this one that we eventually were able to lease (at 6:00 Tuesday afternoon – we were leaving Wed. morning at 6am). The first apartment that rejected our application was a three bedroom railroad style walk up with a full kitchen that included a dishwasher, two blocks from the park and around the corner from an Italian restaurant and an Irish pub – pretty dreamy. The second was a third floor walk up with a giant kitchen (again, with a dishwasher) and room for a table, a claw foot bathtub, tons of closet space, a fireplace in the master, and tons of beautiful molding details and lighting from the 20’s – super cool. Neither of these options that we considered to be perfect had either an elevator or laundry. Thanks, Jesus, for saving us from ourselves and always knowing what we need!!!

I LOVE this City!

I had a rather difficult day in the city last Thursday. It was one of those days where everything seems to go wrong . All of you know how that goes…

Calvin had peed through his diaper the night before, so I had to do laundry that I was not expecting. I try to do laundry once every 5 days, and it costs about $15 to wash all the clothes (If I sent the clothes out to be washed, it would be about $30 – you pay by the pound). This diaper explosion resulted in an extra 5 trips up and down the 2 flights of stairs, the boys following precariously behind, and then the inevitable extra trip to the convenience store on the corner to get more quarters because the comforter didn’t dry in one cycle like I was hoping. $7.50 in quarters later (each wash and dry is $1.50, it took two washers and two dryers to fit the sheets, duvet cover, and comforter, plus the extra dry cycle…) Calvin can once again sleep in a clean bed.

The boys were on eachother’s last nerve from being in such close quarters, so I let Eli pick an outing and he picked going to an action figure and comic book store in the East Village, which sounded awesome. So we packed up and planned on making a day of it – took the subway all the way down past Union Square, and started walking a couple of blocks to find the store. The streets I picked to walk down just happened to be lined by alternative stores all selling a variety of bongs. Eli thought they were awesome and we stopped at most of them to look at the skulls or bright colors or whatever… it felt slightly awkward walking among all the hipster college kids with my toddlers and huge belly, gazing at bongs. Pretty funny and uncomfortable.

I can’t bring the stroller onto the subway by myself because it’s too cumbersome to carry down flights of stairs in the moving crowds while also trying to keep Calvin from tumbling down and Eli from licking the handrail. And so, if we ever take a subway trip, the boys have to walk. They were getting tired of walking down the creepy streets so I was coaxing them and baiting them with the closeness of the action figure store, when we came to the address… and it was a Ramen restaurant (did they only serve Ramen noodles? I didn’t check…). The store had closed. So I’m stuck in the heart of the trendy East Village with two very disappointed and exhausted buddies. We decided to go back home.

A 30 min subway ride later, we got back to our apartment where Eli promptly had to poop. I did not realize, however, that Calvin had clogged the toilet earlier with his poop, and so the toilet started overflowing while I plunged frantically and called our “super”, Manny, because this was the third time this has happened since we moved in and I felt like he should help take care of it this time…

I called Logan to let him know that things weren’t going so well, so he came home to fix the plumbing problem and then we joined him going back to the office b/c he had seen a comic book store close to the Empire State Building that we thought might salvage the day. In the 86^th street subway station, we passed a pile of vomit on the floor on our way to the train. When we reached the comic book store that Logan had only seen the display windows of, I discovered that it was filled with porn, so we stayed only in the toy isle – which sported some pretty busty super-women… And the city suddenly felt sinister to me.

Needless to say, I put the boys to bed early.

I think that days like these are what make people want to move to the suburbs. Luckily, I’ve lived in the suburbs, and I know that there are still inconveniences and setbacks and moments where it feels like everything is working against you. While the things I faced I would have not likely faced in Wells Branch, I’m not likely to have to deal with car trouble or hiding piles of fire ants or door to door salesmen who interrupt dinner or even a constantly growing yard while living on the Upper East Side. I’m so thankful that I know this.

In conclusion, I love this city! I have loved it for years, and I continue find more reason to love it. Because of that, I think it’s easier for me not to blame these inconvenient days on my circumstance, but instead to take them in stride. They are for my sanctification – that I may grow in patience, and fight the temtation to put up walls around myself and my family in hopes that I would not have to face these things. I want to IMMERSE myself in them instead! I want them to cause me to have a softer heart towards the people who live here. I want to grow in my desire to see these 8 million people know truly who Jesus is, and to see renewal come to the streets. I love this city!