Prospect Park is a great place to have a birthday party if your birthday happens to fall under warm/cool months. Sadly, neither of my girls do not. But if you have friends who do, it’s a great way to spend a morning surrounded by trees and lawn, changing leaves, pizza and cake, and even a magic show.

I love Bryant Park. It’s one of my favorite places in NYC, but I hadn’t been there in years. For those who are unfamiliar, the park is situated right behind the grand ole Public Library Building occupying a city block, and is meticulously designed with sweeping trees, ivy, gravel walkways, gardens and a great big lawn littered with green chairs. I found myself in the neighborhood twice in the last 2 weeks for meetings so I spent a little time in the park reminiscing about good times: countless lunches, outdoor summer movie nights, concerts. I don’t have any memories with the kids, however, and can’t recall bringing them to the park at all since we don’t spend a lot of time in midtown in general, but I vowed to come back with them this month. There’s a carousel which I had totally forgotten about, at the south end of the park and I discovered something new that I hadn’t seen before. At the north end, a little reading nook with bookshelves and magazines created a cozy spot for readers and right along side that, there are kid-size table and chairs with a bookshelf of children’s books. So charming.

What is it about Fall that seems to reinvigorate the city? I left the lawyer’s office yesterday (yes! Whimsy & Spice is now an LLC!) and just didn’t want to come home. I met up with my friend Unha for lunch, ran a few errands and before I knew it, it was time to rush back to Brooklyn to relieve our babysitter and prep for my meeting in the morning. Mark worked double shifts yesterday, leaving the house at 6am to go to the Central Park Boathouse where he still consults, then came home to say a quick hello to the kids before leaving for the restaurant where he bakes to help with friends and family night till 11pm. We didn’t get to sleep till 1:30 as we were packing some orders, but we are fairly chipper today for having only gotten 5 hours of sleep. We’re looking forward to a Flea-free weekend so we can catch our breath and spend some fun family time. Hope you are looking forward to your weekend too.

Does anyone else feel like the summer flew by this year? Labor Day weekend comes early this year and I feel like we’re running out of days to do all the summer stuff that’s been on our list. Sadly, we’ve only made it to the beach twice. I never was such a fan of summer and always got excited at any early hint of Fall, but now that I have kids, summer has been so much more fun and I’m finding myself a bit wistful at all the “Back to School” signs, which, in my opinion, has become like Christmas in that it’s just shoved in our faces way too early every year.

We had a really lovely day at the Hudson River water park. We hadn’t been to this particular playground since before Claudine was born, and every time we’ve walked along the water, I wonder why we don’t come to this park more often. I’m happy to say that Claudine happily embraced the water - in her bare feet, no less. Afterwards, we walked back to the train through the meat packing district before embarking on one of the worst train rides home (what is with all the trains being messed up on weekends?)

By the way, here is photo of Mia (below) at the same age in the same swimsuit 2 summers ago - the last time we were at this water park. It was fun to dig this photo out to see and compare the girls at the same age. There is, of course, a resemblance, but it strikes me how different they do look. It’s all in the eyes - they have different eyes. Well, not to mention their (almost) opposite personalities.

We took the girls to the Chelsea Market today and bought a bounty of vegetables for real cheap. These beets were just 50 cents a pound. Since we’ve been eating so poorly, we decided to make a simple, healthy vegetable soup for dinner with some Rosemary bread we picked up at the little Farmer’s Market a block from our place. Not sure what we’ll do with the beets, but they were hard to pass up at that price…and look how beautiful they are - the colors!

Claudine and Mia loved running around the place and I hadn’t been back to the Market since I freelanced in-house at a firm in that building when I was 7 months pregnant with C. Some shops seemed to have changed hands, but we stopped by my favorite spot, the fish store and had sushi and lobster bisque. Mark and I can’t seem to catch our breath on all the work and orders that are coming in daily, so we’ve made it a point to take some time each day to spend together, all 4 of us. Can’t say that these moments are relaxing - the pair of them have become a terror together!

Aren’t these papers pretty? I went to New York Central Art Supply in the East Village this morning to pick up more paper for our sampler gift boxes and I admit I got a little carried away. I LOVE paper and I haven’t been to this store in well over 7 or 8 years. Along with our usual Tibetan sunflower paper, I also picked up a nice gray paper and this delicate white rice paper to play around with. We’ve been getting quite a few wedding favor inquiries so I wanted to experiment with packaging.

Unlike the East Village, New York Central has hardly changed since the years I used to frequent it way back when I was an art student at the Cooper Union a few blocks away. It was nice to be back after so many years and still feel like it was familiar. The surrounding neighborhood, however, is hardly like it was when I lived on St. Marks during college…or even just 8 years ago when I lived on 12th street (crap, I’m freaking old). I don’t come to this neighborhood very often so I forgot about the new stuff like that curved glass monstrosity that’s sitting on the former parking lot of the old Carl Fischer building that we used to cut across every day. It’s hard not to think of old memories whenever I pass by that old Cooper building. I look up at the 5th floor windows and think about how we threw eggs from that window, aiming at the then Cooper Chicken awning across the street (I know, TERRIBLE, but we were 18). It was a weird time to be in art school - the country was in recession and war in the early 90s - and I lost my interest in art. What I do remember about those years was that I grew up and actually lived life. I’m not saying that I had a sheltered childhood, but I spent so many years in high school focused so intently on drawing, painting and sewing, that by the time I got to Cooper, it really wasn’t all that interesting to me anymore.

Walking around in the drizzle today, I recall the morning I walked home from a friend’s apartment 2 months into my freshman year. It was my first time staying up all night with friends since I moved out of my parent’s house and it all felt terribly grown up. The group was mostly older, in their junior year, and we talked about art and life and looked at paintings in this smoke filled studio. When I left it was already at the cusp of dawn. The streets were eerily quiet and empty and I walked home alone down Lafayette towards Chinatown totally and completely happy.

You may guess by now that I am a complete nostalgic sap. When I moved to the West Coast after the Cooper years, I met my match in nostalgic sappiness through a classmate in music class. We later shared a house with 2 other people in Portland (Mark being one of them) and one of our favorite things to do was stay up late till the wee hours of the night, talking and reminiscing about New York. We didn’t know each other then, but we lived parallel lives (me at Cooper, him at the Jazz Program at the New School) and we both left the same year to come to Olympia to study music. We would lounge on the couch and stare at a NYC subway map that he had taped up on the wall and talked like old folks about food and restaurants, beloved streets and neighborhoods, and characters and experiences that we shared in common. Good times.

I’m actually better about letting go of the past since I’ve had kids. It’s not hard to do when you have so many things to look forward to, but when you live in the town you grew up in, it’s hard not to run into shadows of your former life.

For family fun day, we decided to go to Coney Island. It isn’t far by F train - about 35 minutes from our house - but it manages to transport you to a different place. The train ride itself is always fun for the kids since much of it is above ground and they love watching Brooklyn pass by, cemeteries and all (unaware of what they are, Mia actually calls them “cities”). Once there, it’s always refreshing to see the ocean, and the horizon serves as a reminder that there is a whole world beyond our lives in our own little neighborhood. It seems like every year Astroland is threatened to get shut down in favor of new development, but last summer it managed to steal one more year of existence. Perhaps because of this, the visit seemed already nostalgic. We got there on the early side so the rides were mostly empty and you couldn’t help but notice how old and sad and run down the place was. I actually prefer it that way since there is a long history that gives this amusement park great character and soul, something that shiny new amusement parks are completely devoid of. I have my own history with Coney Island as well - not necessarily childhood memories, but adventures during my college years that I won’t go into detail here. Coming here stirs up old ghosts so it’s a bit strange to spend the day here with the kids: same place, new life.

Kids being kids, they had fun riding the carousel, eating corn dogs and ice cream. I kept trying to see the place through Claudine’s eyes, a confusion of saturated colors, whirling tea cups, huge steel machinery spinning multiple arms, garish clowns with gaping mouths hiding trash cans, and a kaleidoscope of trippy music. She seemed to take it nonchalantly in stride considering it was her first visit here, but it was Mia who seemed a little overwhelmed, even though she had already built memories of this place on her own. Funny how that works. We’ll most likely be back before Astroland gets shut down for good, but it’s easy to say that and then realize that time has gone by and you’ve missed that window, so I say a goodbye every time we come, not knowing if it will be here next time.