Serenity Now

Two days later and I am still recovering from my trip to New York. I want to thank the skunk in my neighborhood this morning for the overwhelming smell which brought back memories of the scented city streets that we walked and walked and walked every day.

This was a common sight for me.

I think I am aging faster than my OLDER sisters because almost everyone we meet thinks I am the oldest and apparently I am the slowest. I would like to comfort myself with thinking that I kept stopping to take pictures but even when I wasn't taking pictures I was still slow. My road runner sisters were hard to keep up with.

Our days were chock full of activities and we roamed further from our hotel this trip. Of course we still went to Times Square.



Hasn't anyone told this guy about hands-free when you drive?




And we HAD to go to China Town.








Sheri and April learned to be careful where they sat or stood when my camera was in my hands.





And my camera was almost always in my hands taking pictures of EVERYTHING.











We found some places we would love to go back and eat at and others, not so much.



Both musicals were a hit. We loved Cinderella

and Newsies.

FAO Swartz was a lot of fun. At the entrance a kooky soldier spun us around until we almost puked.





My boys wished that I brought them home Legos from that store... if only.



And if only April hadn't found a giant spider to scare me with. Twice. I made the mistake of closing my eyes after the first time she scared me while I took deep breaths to calm myself down. Then I opened my eyes to find it IN MY FACE. I screamed at the top of my lungs. True story. The worker said it was the loudest she had heard anyone scream in the store - and many, many children have come through. I have topped them all.


I'm still working on forgiving her for that.


This year we took a Central Park pedicab tour with Johnny Cash.










On our last day we went to Grand Central Station. I had no idea how grand and how amazing this place was. I am so glad we took the time to go. I'm sad that Sheri had to leave early and missed it.

I didn't sign up for any college classes this semester because I had a feeling that life was going to be really crazy this winter/spring. I was right. Things have been very busy and I can't imagine what life would have been like if I had added school on top of things.

On Tuesday of this week the phone rang and I saw that it was the elementary school. I groaned inside fearing that one of my boys was calling to tell me they had thrown up at school. With both Brett and myself falling victim to the stomach flu and various others in the neighborhood dropping like flies I figured my kids are gonners. But instead, it was Smiley asking if I was going to go on the 2nd grade field trip the next day. I had already told Smiley before that I would not be going on this particular field trip but that I would go on the one to the farm so I was confused as to why he was calling and asking. I told him no and figured that was that. He asked again, "but are you going on the field trip tomorrow?". Huh? Didn't he hear my answer? I told him again that I wasn't going to the aquarium but would be going to the farm. "But can you go on the field trip tomorrow?" he asked again. Seriously?

This was going nowhere. Then I made the mistake of having him put his teacher on the phone. That was when his teacher explained that they were in DESPERATE need of parents. -sigh- Desperate huh?

Ibuprofin and Maxalt here I come.



At least I was smart enough to meet them there instead of joining the bouncing/screaming 2nd graders on the half-hour bus ride to the aquarium. My group of six was a great group of excited kids who insisted that I see everything that they saw. It reminded me of my boys. I lost count of the number of times I heard, "Look at this! Look at this!"



I didn't bring my Canon with me and just took pictures with my phone. They don't allow flash photography in the aquarium which makes it difficult to take good pictures in a dim environment. But the lighting was just right for a great shot of the jellyfish.

We had a great time (noisy time) and at the end the kids even had an upclose encounter with a tarantula.

They quickly became bored... BORED! And turned their backs on the giant arachnid. I, however, kept a close eye on the hairy beast. I also gave myself a pat on the back for even getting as close as I did. I also resisted the urge to scream for my dad to come and kill it.