The Wasians and the Rest of Us: Emma takes on NYC

As many of you may or may not know, Emma spent last weekend in New York City. Lela's team had to stay the weekend there so everybody was able to fly their spouses out. Well for us that meant Emma was coming with me too! I was borderline in denial that the day was going to come. I kept waiting for something to happen which would mean that I don't have to take an infant by myself to New York. Such an event never happened. So at 4:30am on Saturday morning I walked up to Emma's room, got her up, quickly gave her milk to calm her anxiety over being awakened at such an hour and we were off. In tow I had a suitcase to check, our diaper bag, another backpack, an umbrella stroller and her infant car seat. We arrived at the airport with a lot of time to spare (bag cut off was an entire 15 minutes after we checked in:)) I ran to the gate to talk to the person checking everyone in and see if I could get next to an empty seat (which I was told they do for people with infants). I was basically laughed at and told I needed to check my car seat as there was no way there would be room on this flight. Yes its preposterous to think such a thing would happen for a 7am flight on a Saturday, sorry. So as I board the flight, AFTER I had checked the car seat, they informed me I was moving next to an empty seat. Oh, why thank you, especially now that I have to hold my baby the entire time anyway. Effers. Well the flight was pretty good. Emma ate A LOT of puffs, but my motto for the trip was whatever works, we do! She started to get a little crabby but then crashed for the last hour and a half of the flight. Again, great job by the flight people not allowing my car seat on so I had to hold her that hour and a half rather than laying her in a car seat so I can read or something. NOpe, not bitter at all.

We arrived at the hotel without any further hitches, other than the fact that Satan himself had taken over NYC and brought the heat with him. HOLY CRAP it was hot. We ate lunch with Lela and while she went back to work, we napped. I had all these plans of things I would read while emma was napping in our room, but determined on the trip that I missed naps, thus when Emma napped, I napped! We went out to eat that night but nothing special.

Sunday the 4th started out in an uneventful fashion. Emma and I played all morning in the hotel room, she started to figure out the whole put the right shaped hole thing it seemed. We went and met Lela for lunch and then we napped. Oh and at lunch, Emma ate a TON of burrito. We were so proud, more on this later. . . How sweet was this schedule btw. Play, eat, nap!!! Lela came back early from work so we looked some stuff up and went out for some yogurt. On our way back Emma seemed to be getting grumpy, so we headed off. Yeah, the heat was getting to her we talked as we walked back to the hotel. Lela found out everybody from her team was going to a Brazilian steakhouse. I was like, SUWWEEEET! While living in Denver some of my friends/coworkers would frequent a good Brazilian steakhouse but I never got to go for a handful of reasons. For those of you not familiar with the concept, dudes walk around with giant, tasty, well seasoned slabs of meat and cut you off slices. There are veggies around somewhere, but the main concept is eat a lot of good meat, get the meat sweats, go home and go into a coma where you feel like you may die, but its okay because you were just in heaven. At least that's how its been described to me, again, haven't yet been. Anyway, we are prepping to walk out the door when Emma has a gag sound. . . .and then throws up what seemed like an entire burrito. Hearts are sinking here. . .This is a good example of how my mind differs from Lela. Lela's mind immediately goes to "Oh no, I got to aggressive feeding my baby and her tummy couldn't handle it" and "I am sad that I don't get to meet coworkers spouses and socialize and show off Emma". My mind went to, "Oh no, NO MEAT SWEATS!!!!!". Well we came to find out the food wasn't the cause, merely the projectile (yeah, its gross, but I don't care) as Emma had a temperature all night to the point where there was question if she would actually start her crib on fire. So everyone around NYC is out watching the most glorious fireworks ever, we are eating Chinese take out (well some of the best Chinese EVER at least) and watching foodnetwork. And sleeping in 15 min increments because that's how often Emma is gagging. Yeah, not cool. As I said to Lela, if all that was going to go down, at least we were all together and could help each other out and be there for each other in various ways. . .while everyone else partied like it was 1999.

Monday morning was rough for obvious reasons. Emma seemed to be slightly better and wasn't throwing up so Tylenol helped her break her temp. We eased into the day (code for layed around all morning trying to get energy via Dunkin Donuts and air conditioning) and ventured out for lunch. Emma started screaming as we were packing up, oh boy. But once we got going and arrived at a local pizza place, all of a sudden OUR EMMA WAS BACK! Granted we were all drenched but it felt good to see her again. Insert nap that afternoon and we decided it was time to venture to Little Italy for a place one of Lela's coworkers recommended. Much to Lela's chagrin I was on a mission to take the subway. See when I am in a city, I love to blend in as much as possible and embrace the city. When in a city with a subway, that means take the subway as much as possible. Well when we have done that previously, obviously we didn't have a lovely umbrella stroller, which added some interesting aspects that I will choose to not talk about as it may have made it obvious that we weren't locals. Anyway, we get to the restaurant at 5:20, which has become standard we have a kid so sometimes eat at senior citizen times time to eat. Dinner was phenomenal, great call Vinny (yep, true story, that's the dude who recommended it). Emma also did great, though we didn't risk it much and supplied her with many goldfish. We also saw another baby that was 2 months older than Emma and dwarfed her (Emma is not a tiny baby by the way) which both entertained Emma and provided us with a 'holy crap that baby is giant and has a full set of teeth' moment. We ventured back to the subway, which may have been a worse fiasco than the way out and headed to central park. Emma was fully back this confirmed, laughing and having a good time as you can see by the pics. The park was also noticeably cooler, so only like 94 degrees (not kidding) so that was nice. What a great way to end our stay in NYC!

Tuesday we got up and got ready to leave. Lela's coworker who handled the travel arrangements (which was very appreciated!) had us leaving the hotel for la guardia 3 hrs before our flight. NOrmally I don't care when its just me, I can hang at the airport, eat terrible food and generally amuse myself. But with an infant this was daunting! I improvised and stole a giant towel from the hotel and we set up shop for the 2 hrs that we had after we arrived at the gate. Something happened while we were waiting for our plane. . .Emma figured out that she could manipulate people with cuteness I think. Emma's normally a happy baby, but has a hint of shyness going lately. ow Emma had been experimenting with New Yorkers flashing smiles while we walked around that could break even the angriest east coaster but she hadn't gone full out. Something clicked at the airport where she figured out that if she squeeled and made gestures at others they would smile back and sometimes it would help her attain a goldfish and then everyone would smile back. So the rest of the time we were there she played with anyone who would reciprocate (lela's coworkers spouses, not randoms, don't worry I am not that bad of a dad). Then on the plane she continued her trek, laughed with every goldfish and clapping for everyone. We have a monster on our hands folks! Anyway Emma did great on the flight, slept the first 45 min which allowed me to read. I started reading 'Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters' which has been recommended several times. Got through 2 chapters before Emma woke up, it got quite dusty in the plane if you know what I mean during those 45 min, so we played the rest of the time. Great book by the way, I can already tell, any dad who hasn't read it should.

After the trip a few things were confirmed.

1) Emma loves and misses her mommy. When she saw her saturday you would have thought Lela was a giant human sized goldfish. Yeah, a lot of goldfish themes in this post.

2) We are so blessed to have such a great little wasian gangsta princess who will go through whatever we ask and just wants to be loved (and to have goldfish).

3) Never travel with Lela in the summer. She was in europe for the heatwave where people were dying, now its 20 degrees hotter than KC, a place that isn't known for cool summers.

Completely out of order, but
this is Emma happy to be back in Kansas!