Sitting on the dock of the bay

Sitting in the morning sun

I'll be sitting when the evening comes

Watching the ships roll in

And I watch 'em roll away again

Sitting on the dock of the bay

Watching the tide roll away

I'm just sitting on the dock of the bay

Wasting time

-  Otis Reading 

We've just spent a fantastic two weeks at Willoughby Bay, at a great little house with its own dock, which unfortunately for my family means I can't help but sing a bit of Otis Reading every morning.  After the initial flurry of travel when we arrived in the US it's been great to stop and stay in one place and chill for a bit.  

We've done quite a bit of yoga, reading and going to the beach.  However we have discovered that these things are not as relaxed or zen-like as they sound with the small persons around.... but you trade all that boring old hum drum for a whole heap of fun and silliness.  

Yoga with two toddlers in the room goes something like this: "Hahahaha downward dog, Mummy I can do that one standing on my head!".  Meanwhile the one year old is climbing on your back while you attempt the plank, and then they each take turns at trying to roll under your legs.  Hilarious I know!  This pretty much continues for the full yoga session.  

Reading, well I wasn't talking about reading novels, (who has time for that!?), but we have covered a lot of ground as far as Peppa Pig and Hairy Maclary are concerned. 

And the beach is an awesome scene of splashing and sandcastles, but do not expect to sit down for more than 60 seconds on any given visit.  

So, fun and laughs are in.  Relaxed vege-ing is out.  

Looking across the bay from our little dock is the monstrous Norfolk Naval Station. Wikipedia reliably informs me that this is the "world's largest naval station, supporting 75 ships and 134 aircraft alongside 14 piers and 11 aircraft hangars".  So quite obviously, sitting on the dock of this bay is not as peaceful as you might expect.  There is a constant line up of entertainment provided by Black Hawks doing rescue drills, (Geek-Daddy has just told me that the naval version is actually the Sea Hawk), P-3 Orion aircraft flyovers and a couple of good old fashioned Hercules to add into the mix.  

So here's what I think.  

Sometimes things are not what you expect.  Sometimes they turn out to be the exact opposite of what you expect.  But sometimes this turns out to be more restorative and therapeutic than your highest expectations.  

Ok, gotta get back to sitting on the dock of the bay, I think a couple of Sea Hawks are coming in to land... 

My Washington Post

It goes without saying that toddlers are incessantly curious creatures. From the moment they wake they are tirelessly investigating everything they see and touch, until they fall down exhausted at the end of the day and then sleep all night...  (ahhhh sorry there just went into dreamland for a moment ... who am I kidding about that last part!?!).  

Our boys are both fascinated by real world stuff - dinosaurs, birds, helicopters and bugs are all current favourites.  But it's not just the large or airborne.  Everything they can reach and touch interests them.  The one year old puts grass, or even worse sand in his mouth (ick!) to see what will happen.  Mr Almost 3 presses every button on the radio or smears peanut butter on the table NOT to annoy us (breathe, just breathe...), but because he is exploring and learning about the world.      

Recently Mr Almost 3 has started asking Why?  He asks 'Why' to absolutely EVERYTHING. Sometimes he asks 'Why?' twelve times before breakfast.  Mostly we try to answer as honestly as we can, which for me does vary depending on whether my caffeine levels are sufficiently topped up.  (You need to be pretty alert to answer stuff like - Why does the sun come up? or Why do starfish do poos?).    

If "Why?" is the default toddler response, conversations will wander into all sorts of unexpected areas. On one long Why-filled conversation with Geek-Daddy (who you will see is aptly named), the questioning led all the way to the Big Bang.  When you think about it this really is the ultimate answer to everything.  It's either that or 42.  

  

However there is one area where I'm being a bit cagey with my answers, and this is about the heavy stuff. Walking around historical monuments and museums in the great city of Washington D.C. I found myself steering conversations SHARPLY away from the heavy stuff more often than usual.  

As far as I'm concerned, my little ones can take their good sweet time to find out about death.  Of course I know the time will come when they realise that plants, insects, animals, people, and all living things die. Now that I have seen that sentence written down, I do hope that this realisation comes gradually, perhaps in that order and NOT in one overwhelming moment, like Lelu in the Fifth Element when she gets to letter W and discovers the horrors of War. 

But until then, it seems to me that this is such a wonderfully innocent phase of life, when you actually know a heck of a lot about the world and yet you know nothing of death, war, torture, slavery, or any of the other darker sides of humanity.  

So being in D.C through the inquisitive but wonderfully innocent eyes of a toddler was at times hard to reconcile.  One moment you are walking through the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, being asked What's THAT Mummy (and quickly trying to read what it actually is before responding.... umm, a Pratt & Whitney J57 jet engine, like a really big one.... Maybe Geek-Daddy can tell you more about it when he gets back from the jet fighter simulator).  

And yet you don't really want to talk about the purpose of war planes or ballistic missiles.  So you might point out the Washington monument as a gentle distraction.  What is a monument Mummy?  Well, it's a way of remembering someone or something that happened. (Smugly feeling a bit pleased with that answer).  Mr Almost 3: Why?  (Me: ok, not so smug now).  

Anyway, steering myself sharply back to some favourite memories from our time in D.C.  

WASHINGTON D.C. BEST BITS

Staying 'on the Hill' in a quirky little apartment.

Seeing The Capitol whenever we walked out our front door.  

Organic goodness at Eastern Market around the corner.

Drinking coffee at Pound (even if the service was a bit hipster-grump) on Pennsylvania Ave.

Seeing the Command module from Apollo 11.

Exploring some of the earliest passenger aircraft.   

Having a picnic outside The Capitol one day, and then the White House the next.

Mr Almost 3 asking me if the President would have presents for us.  (Me: Um, no.  Him: Why?)

New York v New Jersey

Silence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who has any, even distant, idea of the profound repose......of silence?”                         Walt Whitman  

New York was a late addition to our trip.  But when you discover you will be driving more or less directly past this great city you just have to stop, don't you?  Times Square, Empire State Building, yellow cabs, skyscrapers, people everywhere, roaring, rumbling, New-freaking-YORK...!

We have been to Manhattan a few times before and loved it every time.  The captivating vibe of the place, the fantastic food, and the shopping..... oh the shopping.  Being in the US always seemed to be a bit of a half price sale to me, but this time things have changed.  I haven't had a chance for a trip to Bloomingdale's yet, but $15 for an hours parking, $11 for two coffees, $5 for ONE icecream, $20 for a pizza, a sort of quiet inflation seems to have occurred.   Damn you quantitative easing.

New York had been excluded for another reason - baby-gistics.  Even the teeny weeny strollers are folded for public transport in Manhattan, so our hefty double Uppa Baby didn't stand a chance. It wasn't really designed to be a quick fold operation, nor were my arms designed to lift my two toddlers at the same time. But we made it work and met up with an old friend along the way (love you Caz!) with a great trip up the Rockerfeller, down memory lane over lunch, and an afternoon in Central Park.

The boys also enjoyed seeing the Space Shuttle on the USS Intrepid, the cool playgrounds around Hell's Kitchen, and the amazing Toys-R-US in Times Square - a toy store so gigantic it has a ferris wheel as it's center piece.

Budgets being what they are we traded the option of a Manhattan shoe-box for a spacious three bedroom apartment in Union City, which is over the Hudson in New Jersey.  I explain the location because ask a New Yorker and they have no IDEA where Union City is, even tho it's closer than the Bronx, and, as we discovered, just 15 mins by bus (when the bus decides to arrive!), to Times Square.

So less than 5 miles away via the Lincoln tunnel, Union City, known as "Havana on the Hudson", seems virtually NOTHING like New York, and I have to admit that my first impressions were on the unfavourable side.  The high street is crowded and a bit tacky with swathes of 99c stores, a $5 shoe warehouse, and a lot of signage promoting "butt boostin' jeans".

However after settling in we discovered something really lovely about being on this side of the river. Families were sitting together on the 'stoop' (don't you love a stoop...!?!) and laughing with their kids.  People were constantly offering to help carry our heavy stroller, or giving up their seats on the bus.  Waitresses were smiling and chatting away to the boys as we ordered lunch in what was clearly the wrong language in restaurants (sadly our Spanish is not up to scratch!).  And in the water play parks and playgrounds crowds of children were running and splashing like mad to cool off from the hot August summer days.

I look forward to being wrong again about first impressions.  And to seeing other old friends we might meet along the way.

Stuff and Things and a bowl of plastic fruit.

I'm not going to lie.  Travelling with toddlers is HARD.  For one thing there is the amount of Stuff you need, it's an outrageous quantity of Stuff and Things that you can't even fathom yourself.  (We honestly look at the pile in wonderment... - is this seriously all our Stuff?  Do we really need all these Things?).    

And then there's the busyness.  Two active toddlers give you a pretty full on day even if you stay in one place. Early mornings, messy breakfasts, a somewhat sluggish getting-dressed process, clearing of toys, packing of picnic lunches, park visits, resistant nap taking, nappy changes, preparation of acceptable (non suspicious looking!) meals and snacks. Then add long drives, new abode childproofing, unfamiliar supermarkets, and things are wonderfully hectic!  

One thing that makes our U.S. adventure much easier is staying in apartments and holiday homes rather than hotels.  I don't know if you've ever stayed in a hotel with small people, but the major downfall of this plan is when the kids go to bed, at say, 7.30pm or something and you get to sit there in the dark (oh the joys!) until you give in and go to bed early yourself.  I'm afraid that I speak from experience on this and even if you are in a lovely French coastal village, sitting in silence in the dark all evening makes for one of your least favourite holiday memories.  (And if, for example, you get the option of putting your child's cot in the bathroom, so that you can at least watch a bit of telly, chat to your husband, and feel like a grown up person for the evening you might just do it.  Or so I've heard....). 

We have been using 'AirBnB' to book accommodation, which despite a slightly unhelpful name is a pretty cool site for searching for properties - partly because it's self-regulating, and partly because you get a whole house/apartment for a fraction of the price of a suite at the Days Inn.  (And we all know what the Days Inn is like!).  We started staying in short let apartments whenever we went to Europe a few years ago and there's something really cool about having locals as your neighbours, as opposed to other tourists.  Plus you get to buy yummy stuff from all the fabulous farmers markets and come home and cook up a storm over a relaxing wine or two. 

We are in our third AirBnB apartment tonight, and so far everything has been easy as pie. We turn up, get access straight away, the places are clean, everything works, and they have been advertised with surprising honesty.  However the place we are in for the next few nights has a bit of a strange vibe.  The walls are bright orange, and if you can believe it we are talking several shades BRIGHTER than tangerine.  But that is not all, oh no, that is not all!  (Ahem, we been reading a fair bit of Dr. Suess lately, just starts rolling of the tongue doesn't it..!?).  No, we also have an enormous bowl of life-sized plastic fruit on the kitchen table.  We have bananas, we have peaches, we have tangerines (perhaps where the wall colour inspiration came from... uugh!), we have three apple varietals, we have lemons and a lime.  There are well over a dozen plastic fruits taking up an entire table and I just don't understand why?  Surely the table would be better empty than having this homage to plastic tack?  

Of course, the boys think the plastic fruit is the coolest thing EVER.  It's fruit!  But it's plastic!  Hilarious! You can roll it!  It's like a ball!  etc etc.  

This highlights one of the most wonderful things about travelling with toddlers.  They have masses of appreciation for the little things we see along the way.  - I found the smallest grape in the world!  The stones are warm from the sun!  Look, shiny sand!  A tiny spider!  A giant teapot!  For giant tea!  

Yesterday we did the very beautiful Cliff Walk past Newport's gilded mansions.  We reached the Breakers, the grandest of the mansions with 70+ rooms, where my conversation with Mr Almost 3 went something like this....    

Me: "Look at that massive house!"  
Toddler: "Yea".  (as if it's a dried up old vegetable).  
Toddler:  Wow - look at the lawnmower!  That's really cool.  Daddy, did you see it..!??!   

A red ride-on with eight attachments, the lawnmower WAS pretty cool, actually.  Almost as good as the plastic tangerine.  

Cool stuff about Boston

How they say Boston. (BOARRRston).  

Being schooled by our Somalian taxi driver on how to correctly say Boston.  

The ratio of really awesome playgrounds and parks per square foot.  (And they have shade!) 

Morning Buns from Clear Flour Bakery that make jet lagged mornings almost acceptable.  

Walking along the Charles River on a sunny afternoon.  

Eating lobster rolls any time of day.  

How they call the subway the T.  

Leafy neighbourhoods with colonial style houses.  

The laundromat is (so far) still a novelty.  

Mum's (Mom's) are breastfeeding everywhere.  And not just tiny bubbas, older babies too (Love it!)  

Samuel Adams Boston Lager after a long hot day in the sunshine.  

The Red Sox and Fenway Park is awesome.  

Singing "Take me out to the ballgame" with my family whilst watching the Red Sox win at Fenway Park is really really awesome.  

Toddler flight survival

In the film, About a Boy, Hugh Grant's jobless but wealthy character has the luxury of dividing his time up into 'units'.  He goes for 2 hour time slots and fills his days doing relaxed and anodyne stuff.  Have leisurely breakfast, one unit.  Watch some telly, one unit. Read a magazine, one unit.  And so it goes.  

And it occurred to me that dividing your time up in this way could be a good way of surviving a long haul flight with our two little ones.  Given their ages (almost 1 and almost 3), I am going for 10 minutes as an appropriate 'unit' for their concentration span.  

So: have a snack, one unit.  Bathroom trip, one unit.  Create a pilots cockpit in your seat with stickers from your airport sticker book, one unit (sorry about the stickiness in seat 40G Virgin Atlantic!).  Watch a couple of 'Peppa Pig' episodes, one unit.  See an airport fire drill out your window while the plane taxis, one AWESOME unit.  Sit on tarmac for almost an hour before takeoff because we missed our slot, negative 6 units.   (arrghhh!).  

I'm happy to report that after about 5 hours of games (scarf in a tin was a surprisingly big hit....  it's in!  it's out!  it's in again! .... etc. etc.), loads of snacks, an above quota unit of ipad action, and a very loooooooong process of settling (at least 6 units each!) both our boys slept for the final hours of the flight, all the way to the gates at Boston Airport ... a bakers dozen of units.