Stop that bus!!!

Last trip we took to Tennessee, we nearly missed our flight. Its an early morning flight which forces us to leave the house way earlier than we are usually awake, and we just got up and at 'em too late.

"Lets not repeat our mistake from last trip," I told David, "Lets leave plenty of time."

But when it was came time to decide when to set the alarm for, twenty minutes seemed more than sufficient to get up, get dressed, make coffee, put together last minute things and get in the car with our two young children.

"Yeah, that'll work," I said, "And it shoudn't take more than a half hour to get to Newark. Its a Sunday morning, after all."

David agreed: "Yeah, the problem last time was we didn't know how to get to that cheap ass long term parking area. But now we do. That'll be fine."

As it turned out, I'd had my days mixed up, something which commonly occurs since my post-baby-number-two lobotomy. We were traveling on a Monday, the which might have been OK if we'd left on time at 6:30 but wasn't so OK when we left at 7am, after stopping to pick up a dozen bagels to take with us to Tennessee.

"It'll just take five minutes to stop by the bagel place," David said confidently, "We'll still have time to make the 7:20 shuttle from the parking place to the airport."

"I think its too tight," I said,"And the next shuttle doesn't come for twenty minutes."

David prevailed, however, and I was soon I was holding a bag which stunk to high heaven of garlic bagels and having a small ulcer about the fact that we'd be screwed if we encountered any traffic or wrong turns or obstacles along the way.

Such as, perhaps, going the wrong direction on the New Jersey Turnpike. That was an unfortunate turn of events.

"Shit," David said, "I gotta get off this turnpike."

Getting off the turnpike was not as easy as one might think. Before we knew it, we were on the Garden State Parkway, whipping out our EZ Pass again and again, getting further and further away from Newark Airport.

The kids started whining that they were hungry.

"We need COMPLETE SILENCE in this car!" I shouted, "Daddy needs to concentrate."

It was 7:40.

"Well, the 8am shuttle should still get us on the flight," I ventured.

"IF we make it." David countered.

"IF?" I said, "David, we are making that shuttle. I am not repeating this horror show tomorrow morning AND paying change fees on four tickets."

At 7:59, incredibly, we were approaching the exit which takes us to the long term parking, albeit at a snail's pace. We were so close.

"I'm calling the parking place and having them hold the shuttle," I said in my ball-busting voice. The only people whose balls I should have busted were mine and my husband's but still.

The woman who picked up the phone at the parking lot said the shuttle had already left.

"But that's impossible!" I cried, "Its not even 8 yet!"

"Actually, it is 8:01."

"No, its actually 1 minute to 8."

Rather than continue this incredibly enriching debate, she said, "Hold on," and I heard her on her walkie talkie asking the driver to hold the bus.

"Bus left," the driver said.

"Can you hold it please?" she asked. I waited with bated breath.

"OK," the driver said, "We're holding."

"Thank you! Thank you!" I exclaimed.

"Just hurry please," she said, exasperated.

I relayed the message to David: "Hurry!"

He was exasperated, too: "What precisely would you like me to?'

"Change lanes! Do some fancy driving. Make this happen."

At 8:05 we were pulling into the parking lot and saw the shuttle parked in the main entrance.

"Its there!" I yelled, "We made it!"

I reached down to grab my bag on the floorboard and when I looked up again, the shuttle was gone.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?" I yelled.

By this point, the kids were so stressed out o they didn't even blink when I dropped the F bomb.

"Its leaving!" David yelled, pointing to the shuttle which was driving out the exit.

"STOP THE CAR!" I yelled, jumping out of the still-moving car and running in my trusty Frye-boot-knock-offs like a crazy person.

"STOP THE BUS!" I yelled, running directly in front of it, "WE'RE HERE!"

Everyone looked annoyed. I don't blame them. If I'd been on that bus, I'd have counter yelled, "DON'T LISTEN TO THAT EGOMANICAL BITCH!"

But thankfully, the only passengers were one tired airport worker and a quiet Asian business man. They weren't about to counter yell me.

"RUN FOR THE BUS, KIDS!" I yelled, as I darted inside to give the parking lot attendant my credit card.

We forgot a small bag and who knows what state the car was left in,but we got on that shuttle and then breezed through curbside checkin, through the monorail to the correct terminal, and through security. After a quick stop to Hudson News to buy me Advil for my POUNDING FREAKING HEADACHE, we hurried to our gate where our flight was boarding.

We got on. Seconda asked the person in the front row, "Is this plane going to Tennessee, please?"

It was. And now we are here picking honeysuckle and chasing butterflies.

All in a day's work.

Pulling strings in East Tennessee

Primo woke up at 4 in the morning complaining of ear pain, the day before Thanksgiving. Within five minutes, I'd come up with an emergency earache investigation plan.

Normally, a little ear pain doesn't alarm me, but we had to get on a plane in a few days and I know just enough about pediatric medicine to worry about a perforated ear drum (and not enough about it to talk myself down). I also know that I couldn't take him to be seen by anyone on Thanksgiving or the day after, so I mobilized for pre-emptive action. When we woke the next morning, I called my doc in New York first thing, and he informed me that since he was not a virtual doctor, he would not be able to treat an ear infection in Tennessee, from New York.

"Have him seen by someone over there," he advised.

"Ok," I grumbled, "But just tell me what you'd do, and what you'd prescribe, so that I know if they're doing the right thing."

The reason I love my pediatrician is that he did so, with no complaint.

Then I called my sister-in-law to see who she brings her kids to locally and she referred me to a general practice, walk-in clinic run by - what a small world -- one of David's friends from the Boy Scouts. David hadn't seen this man since he was 12 years old -- in fact, the doc was going by an entirely different first name nowadays - but nonetheless, there was the link.


"Ok, here's what we do," I told David, " You call them up and see if they take our health insurance. Then you tell them you are a CLOSE PERSONAL FRIEND of the doctor's and that we need to see him, and have them squeeze us in -- anytime is fine, whenever opening they have."

"Ok,ok," David complied dialing the number. I listened to him explain the situation and refer to his close childhood friendship with the doctor and I heard him "uh huh." "uh huh" "huh uh" a few times and then he hung up.

"Well, what did they say?"

"Come anytime after 12:30," he said.

"Great!" I exclaimed, "We'll get there early, beat the rush, cut down on the waiting room build up."

With two young kids, you spend a lot of time in pediatrician's offices and you learn some tricks. You learn to strategize.

We get to the walk-in clinic at 12:30 on the dot and find the waiting room empty. There is no pre-Thanksgiving rush, no like-minded strategists, it seems. I gave David a nudge, and he recited the words I'd prompted him to say.

"Hi, I called earlier about my son, who we think has an ear infection. The doctor and I go way back, we were boy scouts together, so I'd love if he could see us today."

"Are y'all from out of town?" drawled the middle-aged woman behind the front desk.

"Yes," I said, "What gave us away?"

She was kind enough not to reply: "The neurotic way in which you try to control everything, and the obnoxious habit you have of trying to throw your weight around and how damn seriously you take yourselves."

Instead, she said, "Y'all just look BE-wildered! Come on, I'll help you fill out this paperwork."

I instantly took umbrage at this assessment, wanting to retort, "I'm from New York and I don't GET bewildered. Being from New York means I'm bewilder-proof. I'm the one who does the bewildering. Capisce?"

But of course, that'd just be me, getting more bewildered. Instead, I filled out the paperwork, tried to bite my tongue when the nurse practitioner looked inside Primo's ear and said it looked "dark" (of course its dark, that's why you use one of those nifty lights) and made a minimal amount of fuss declining the Z-pac she wanted o prescribe and pushing for the more appropriate amoxicillin.

We did see David's long-lost close childhood chum on the way out though, and he gave the kids a sucker. We call them lollipops but I didn't quibble. I can be flexible like that, you see.

We're going to make it after all

We're in Tennessee. Its only an hour and a half flight, which sounds like no big deal -- smooth sailing -- but if you've been on any airplane with two young children, you'll know there is no such thing. I mean, it was a helluva lot easier than our recent red-eye flight to Italy, memories of which still haunt me in my dreams, but that's not saying much. This time, I was prepared to face heightened airport security, including pat downs and full body scans but neither of these presented themselves (what? I'm not hot enough for the full body scan?) Instead, the trouble came in the form of unexpected delays. Which were totally our fault.

Yeah, we got lost driving to the supercheap off-airport parking near Newark. And when you get lost near the airport, you're totally fucked -- one wrong turn, and you're stuck driving through the the entire airport, which'll easily cost you 15 minutes. OK, so maybe you wouldn't be fucked if you were the sort of persn who gave yourself more than a 15 minute cushion, but we just don't roll like that. When we finally found the parking spot, we saw the airport to the shuttle pulling away, which meant we'd have to wait another 20 minutes. We raced through check in and baggage drop off and the Air Train over to the terminal and through security, where no one was patted down or full body screened, as far as I know.

While lacing up our boots after security, I said, "I think we're going to make it after all." Then, I repeated it again, but more slowly and sagely, so that it would be clear to all who happened to hear that I was referring to more than just the flight. Then, realizing I sounded like I was in an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I had to laugh out loud. All of which made me sound like a nutjob.

We did make it after all, onto the plane, that is.

I'll tell you what didn't make it. Our Maclaren stroller, which we checked at the gate, the way you have to when you fly with a stroller. When we landed in Tennessee, the stewardess handed us our stroller, except that one of the front wheels had been mangled beyond recognition. The rubber had been ripped off and the steel or aluminum or whatever the hell they use to make the hub was twisted and bent all out of shape.

Now, I should note that we came by this stroller in the following fashion: my mom brought it over one day, looking new as can be, with no explanation. When I pressed her as to why she'd decided to get us a stroller, suddenly and for not apparent reason, she said that she had been leaving work one day and saw a poor, pitiful young mother trying to sell it on the street for money for her baby and so she bought it from her, for charity. I didn't buy this bullcrap, not for a second, so I kept pestering her and pestering her to explain where the hell she got this nice stroller and she finally confessed, in a very irritated tone: "I found it on the street in front our our office, OK? Some kid had vomited in it and those assholes, their parents, just left it there even though it was PRACTICALLY NEW! All that was wrong with it was a little VOMIT!" So that's how we got our swank Maclaren stroller, and really, when I saw it mangled up, I should have thought, "easy come, easy go." But I didn't.

"Do you see this?" I asked the stewardess, "My stroller's all mangled. I can't use it."

"Yes I see that ma'am, but unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it." she replied stiffly.

"Can't I file a damage claim or something?"

"Unfortunately not, because stroller wheels are not covered by our damage claims."

"Ok, here's the situation. I gave you this stroller in New York and it was fine. Now you give it back to me and its un-usable. So I need to talk to someone about this."

"Yes, I do understand that ma'am, but unfortunately, my supervisor is not here on Saturdays."

I'll spare you the rest of this edifying convo. After a few back and forths, I realized I wasn't getting anywhere and tried the airline ticket counter at the front of the airport only to find there was no one there. So I went downstairs to get David who was claiming our luggage, and cleaning up Sec, who had shit her pants on the airplane. She's going through a phase where she's too scared to poop and sometimes this results in shit-in-the-pants. Meanwhile, Primo's screaming about how he refuses to stop at the International House of Pancakes for lunch because the chance of rain today is over 0 percent and he wants to go straight home, since he is currently terrified of precipitation.

So with my two crazy kids, both of whom are crying and carrying on, I head BACK up to the ticket counter to see if, perchance, someone's decided to actually WORK even though it is Saturday and I do see someone but unfortunately, its the same stewardess who was totally useless at the gate.

I caught her looking at the door behind her when she saw me coming but I was walking too fast and she was caught, at the counter.

"Yeah, its me again."

"I see that ma'am."

"Ok, look, I'm not being unreasonable here. I had a stroller and now I don't and I need one for my daughter and I need your airline to take care of it because you broke it."

"But I can't do anything about it so why don't you tell me what you want to do."

I love Southeners because this is about as mad at they get. Snippy. In Newark, we'd be slinging four letter expletives back and forth by now.

"What I want to DO," I retorted, "is leave you this stroller, because I sure as hell can't use it, and I want to leave a note taped to it for your supervisor when he gets back on Monday. How about that?"

Which is precisely what I did. And not only did the stewardess not get more irritated and irate, she actually told me, as I was writing my little note, that she understood how I felt and she sure did hope I got my stroller fixed because she was a mom, too.

Makes you feel purty good to have a civilized exchange like that.

So we're here in the Smokies. Looks like we made it after all -- onto the plane, that is. As for the rest, that remains to be seen.

Airport Security

I am always fearful that David is going to lose his temper when going through airport security in NYC, and that we’ll miss our flight, at best, and be locked up in some secret dungeon at LaGuardia, at worst. I don’t fault him, really, for getting so perturbed. When you’re going through security with two little children, one of whom is utterly unmanageable -- making sure your daughter doesn’t run down the up escalator while you’re taking off your shoes; remembering to remove laptops from backpacks; locating the boarding passes; explaining the liquids in your sippy cups – well, its stressful enough. Add to that downright unfriendly security people and you’ve got yourself a disaster-in-the-making.

David hates it because he always feels like he’s breaking rules that no one ever explained to him in the first place.

“Sir, you need to remove the laptop from the sleeve,”

“You. Again. You can’t put anything else in the bucket with your laptop.”

“And your belt. Gotta come off.”

“Sir, sir, SIR! You need to push the buckets through.”

That just about did it for David. “I have to push it through? Since when?” he muttered as we put on shoes on, “I have to do EVERYTHING now?”

When we flew back from Knoxville, however, it was an entirely different story. While I was busy collapsing the stroller (which incidentally, the security man offered to do FOR ME) Seconda dashed over to the X ray machine where Primo, who’d been paying attention at LaGuardia, was helping to push the buckets through. Except Sec was just sticking her hand in the machine.

“Honey, don’t do that!” exclaimed a security worker about my mom’s age.

At which point I reached over and yanked her back.

Then the woman APOLOGIZED to me for startling my daughter. Who was, incidentally, totally unfazed. It would take the Nimean Lion to startle this one. Still, the woman said to me, sweet as cherry pie, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to alarm her, you know, but I was just scared since she was puttin’ her hands right on inside.”

“No need to apologize,” I replied.

Then the security worker on the other side of the machine suggested I have a seat while putting my shoes back on and told me – get this – to take my TIME. Toto, I don’t think we’re in New York anymore.

Did you know they have wooden rocking chairs in the airport in Knoxville? For your PLEASURE. Not only regular rocking chairs, but tiny kid-sized ones, too, and double-wides, in the event you want to snuggle with your loved one. They offer you rocking options, is what I’m saying. Free of charge. Take your time. Have a lulling rock. And a free refill of sweet tea while you’re at it.

I’m not saying New Yorkers aren’t friendly – hell, I’m a New Yorker myself and I’d like to think I’m compulsively congenial – but the man told me to TAKE MY TIME. Going through airport security. Amazing.

The South has its merits, I’ll tell you what.

Country Time

We've just returned from a week in the country. Summertime in Tennessee sure is sweet. I now know how Huck Finn felt. I mean, we found a TURTLE, a living box turtle just hanging out in the woods near my father-in-law's house. The kids didn't really care that much, but I was over the MOON. I was like, "Guys! This is some Bambi shit. We found a PET, a bona fide pet, not a water bug, just walking home." Then my father-in-law said, "Yeah, we eat turtles here. They taste good. Course we don't eat the littleuns like this; not enough meat on their bones."

We also spotted an owl that day. Are you getting this? Sec said, "Mommy, there's an owl." and I was like, "OK, honey, sure. I'll play, I see a Tyrannosauras Rex!" And DAvid was like, "There is a owl, up there in the tree." Insane.

The other thing we stumbled across, considerably less cute was a RATTLESNAKE. Man, can you imagine me coming across such a thing? While we were swimming in the river? Thankfully, I didn't see it and David and his sister didn't tell me about it til after they'd speedily ushered us out of the river. So, I guess that's what you get with nature - one day its a cute little turtle you encounter, the next a venonomous viper. Its why I try never to stray too far frm asphalt.

But, that's behind us now. Here's some highlights from our country holiday.

Catching tadpoles and feeding catfish in the pond:


Making elf houses:

For the record, 'twas I who made this house, not Primo and not Seconda, though they did scout for sticks and stones. I say this to point out how difficult elf-house-construction is. Or maybe I'm just a lousy naturalist. I mean, I never made a gnome home in my childhood. I read books and played Barbies all summer long. Have you done this shit before? It is freaking complicated.

What's NOT complicated is picking red ripe raspberries by the side of the road. Tasty little suckers. Sec went Blueberries-for-Sal style and ate all the berries up before they could land in her bag.



Playing with the garden hose. I know this doesn't sound thrilling to you but keep in mind that the only hose we have in our hose is the panty variety. Instant sprinkler!

The upside-down house and other wonders

Its an upside-down building!!!! How freaking cool is that? Just one of the many wonders you can behold in Sevierville, TN. Actually, most of the other wonders are located inside this building, a science museum aptly named Wonderworks. David and I, along with his sister and her husband took the kids over yesterday and it was a real hootenany. Seriously, I thought this place was off the hook. I don't want to badmouth the Liberty Science Center but this place has an upside-down edifice, for God's sake, including dangling trees!! Other wonders included the tiled floor located ON THE CEILING:



The Hurricane Chamber was pretty wild. You head inside this mini subway-car-type thing and then winds up to 65 miles an hour are blasted in your face. Kids thought that was crazy fun, although after all the natural disaster this world has seen in the last few years, I found it a little scary:



Primo and Sec spent a good 20 minutes trying to pull themselves up on this seat attached to a pulley system.They now understand what an unsung hero our elevator is:



Then you enter Space Zone with a lot of computers asking what I considered to be exceedingly hard quiz questions about American space history. Also one super cool space shutle control chamber where you have to sit upside down:



And then there was this:



A bed of nails, you say? WHO would be crazy enough to lie down on a real bed of nails? Oh, I'll tell you who.

Primo saw the bed of nails and raced over, telling me he really wanted to try it. Now, this doesn't sound like my anxious, circumspect first-born at all, so I was a little surprised but I'm all about encouraging his bravery so we got on line. While waiting, I read to him the explanation of why it was safe to lie of the bed of nails, and the reason is basically that there are so many nails - 3,487 to be exact-- that each nail gets just a tiny faction of your weight and so your body doesn't get punctured. I was hoping for a slightly more convincing reason like, "Its safe because these are fake nails" or something similar. So its finally our turn and Primo has - what else - cold feet. He resolves them by instructing ME to go on the bed of nails, putting me in quite a predicament. I can't refuse because I don't want to show him there's anything to be afraid of but dude, spreading out on a surface of sharp pointy things made to hold lumber together is not my idea of fun. But I haul my ass on that table and lie there listening to them slowly raise the nails through the plastic table top with 3,487 holes in it and growing increasingly worried that it wasn't a prudent idea to take instructions from a five year-old. It wasn't painful, its true, but it wasn't NOT painful either. It was a definite all-over pinch, particularly on my bare legs.

So the basic idea here is never WALK on a bed of nails but if you must have some encounter with them, lie right on down. Wonderworks says its safe and Wonderworks knows.

This makes me curious - anyone else try this stunt? Swallow swords? Eat fire? I'd like some scientific explanation for those, too.

Chillin with Sufjan

Spring break, woohooooo, and we’re spending it in Tennessee with the Southern family. We flew in Friday morning and GUESS WHO was on our flight?

Sufjan Stevens. And the members of the National. Between the band and their managers and crew, half the seats in the puddlejumper were occupied by hipsters in skinny jeans, hoodies and knit caps. I would never have recognized old Sufjan but my husband knows this sort of thing, just like he knew about the special show they’re doing together in Knoxville.

The only thing I could really remember about him was that David bought his double Christmas CD a few years ago and for some reason it’s the only one we haven’t lost so every year when its tree trimming time, David puts on the Sufjan Christmas album which is a very nice and pleasing album, but doesn’t exactly conjure the yuletide spirit, and I say, “Would it KILL us to listen to some Dean Martin while I string this freaking popcorn????”

I tell you one thing -- made me feel old as sin, to be chasing after my two rugrats in the baggage claim area of McGhee Tyson airport while soft-talking Sufjan and his pals collected their equipment. But here we are in the Smoky Mountains and loads of sweet tea, put put and ranch dresing await!

Imdb THIS, baby

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share this exclusive, never-before-seen clip from the movie that David and I made back when we were dating. It was during this film shoot that I fell in love with him. Simple as that: we started and I was only minorly intrigued by him, we wraped and we were soulmates. Though we met in college and had a brief, one-night-long dalliance there while he was with someone else (gasp! disgrace!) we parted ways afterwards and he went off to live with his girlfriend while I went off in an apparent attempt to break the world record for romantic entanglements with hipster assholes who lived in the east village and had clawfoot bathtubs in thier living rooms. Believe it or not, I'm not talking about one person in particular but a whole category of men who are totally unmemorable and pretty much interchangeable.

When I met up with David again, a few years after college, he'd broken up with his girlfriend and we dated a bit but I was so into the elusive douchebags of no substance that I more or less dismissed the earnest Southerner who wore his heart on his sleeve and sent me (unironic) flowers. Then he asked me to be the lead in his indie film, which he was shooting in his hometown in Tennessee and it seemed like a good career movie -- the guys was a great writer and I'd never been to Tennessee. So I did it. And now we've been married six years. Its kind of amazing to have a chronicle of how you fell in love with your husband.

(Two notes before viewing: A. I did my own makeup so try to forgive the heavy lip gloss application. B. I did my own accent coaching which basically consisted of chain-viewing Coal Miner's Daughter. That's why I sound like I'm doing an impersonation of Loretta Lynn)

Blue Plate Trailer

The Odyssey to Tennessee Part Two Or what mind-alerting drug was I on when I suggested this motherf&*%^ing road trip

To pick up where I left off.

Flight to TN rescheduled for historic blizzard (which turned out to be pretty paltry actually).

Make-up flight cancelled because of feverish child.

That leaves us with: road trip.

David and I have driven to his family’s place in East Tennessee a zillion times before we had kids. Once we were down South and my agent called to say I had an audition the next morning so we just picked up right then, booked it back to NY and made it in time for my audition (was for a vacuum cleaner, I think, lest you think I was reading for something high-profile and exciting). David and I have driven across-country to California three times. We are NOT road trip novices.

But that was before the babies.

Now, we drive to my parents’ place in New Jersey and the two hours spent in the car are filled with such agida I can taste my own bile by the time we get out. The screaming! The pushing and hitting between the car seats! The whining! The demanding of snacks and toys and other items which are instantly dropped to the floorboard where the kids cannot reach them since they are both strapped into a five-point harness car seat and where I am forced to retrieve them, twisting my body around in contortions which I couldn’t even manage back when I was in actual Circus School, much less now, when I am a decrepit shell of a woman.

Here are some things you should know about the way our family rolls:

1. I get extremely car sick.

I had a stomach of steel previous to having children. One Valentine’s Day, my best friend Em and I stuffed my face with sushi, then dashed over to African dance class immediately after and I managed to keep all my food down. I wear that as a badge of intestinal pride. But having severe morning sickness both pregnancies somehow altered my physiological makeup and I now can not so much as glance at a word on a passing sign unless I want to get hit with a tsunami of nausea. Consequently:

2. I don’t read maps or signs or help navigate in any way at all.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had GPS but we don’t because its just not the sort of thing I ever want to spend our hard-earned dollar on. Besides, David has a freaky sense of direction, super-keen and nearly always unfailing (except for that one time in Anza Borrego, CA, but that’s another story) He is a wunderkind really – can read the directions from the print-out on his lap, keep an eye out for exits while at the same time reaching his insanely long arms into the back seat to fish out Seconda’s sippy cup. He is literally a one-man driving machine.

3. We don’t have a DVD player in the car

This would, likely, solve all our problems. Yet I continue to maintain that the car is a WONDERFUL opportunity for family bonding. Playing 20 Questions and I Spy! Listening to perfectly delightful books-on-tape, like Heidi! Singing as an ensemble to Hey Jude! These are team-building activities. Of course, this only accounts for 5-10% of our time in the car and the rest of the time is taken up by the kids whining and fighting but hey, at least we’re all in it together.

Seeing as this was an extraordinarily long trip, I did bring the emergency portable DVD player which we bought when we took Primo to Italy a few years ago. It cost $90, has under 2 hours battery power, and virtually no control buttons so you can’t fast forward or rewind, but it works well in a pinch. I also packed pasta and sandwiches, tons of snacks, lollipops, licorice, Sweet Tarts, basically anything bribe-like I could get my hands on. Since Seconda had been fever-free all night and early morning, we decided it was all systems go. At 7:30am Monday morning we made tracks.

I want you to know I suggested spending the night at a city half-way along our route. Its what we did the two times we drove to North Carolina and it worked out really well. But David had been delayed two days already in starting his vacation and seeing his family and he didn’t want any more delays. So the plan was to make it to Gatlinburg is a single shot.

Here’s the good news:

The kids were stupendous. For perhaps the first time on this blog, I have to report they so far exceeded my expectations I actually felt a little guilty for doubting them. There was hardly any fighting or whining though quite a lot of contortions in service of picking up shit on he floorboard.

The bad news:

I was in a car with my two children for FOURTEEN HOURS.

We left NYC at 7:30 in the morning and rolled into my in-law’s place at 10:30 that night. And believe me when I say we didn’t do any sight-seeing along the way. With the exception of three 20 minute breaks for leg-stretching, gas refills and Happy Meal toys (more on that tomorrow), we put the pedal to the medal, baby. It was kind of excruciating. Whoever decided Virginia should be so big? I mean, no offense to VA but it took like SIX HOURS to get across it. Delaware, on the other hand, makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something. You really feel like you’re FLYING when you cross the whole state of Delaware in all of fifteen minutes.

The good/ bad news:

A mere three hours after exiting the car Monday night, I started to feel ill. Wake-you-up-and-drive-you-to-the-toilet kind of ill. Then I projectile vomited all those No-Longer-Happy Meals. So the bad news is I got a damn stomach virus as soon as the road trip was over. The good news is I got a damn stomach virus as soon as the road trip was over.

Getting home for the holidays, the hard way

Now that the obligation to spread Christmas joy and cheer is behind us, I feel its time to share with you the story of how we got home for the holidays.

The Odyssey to Tennessee Part One: Grounded

Being prudent, responsible folk, David and I secured our plane reservations for Christmas months ago. I even remembered to call the day before to score the bulkhead, which you’ll remember from my previous posts on the subject is something I feel passionately about. The way in which I packed our suitcase was nothing short of a work of art. I’d handed out gifts and envelopes to everyone on the list - all the teachers and teacher’s helpers, all the doormen and porters and supers. We were in a somewhat shocking state of preparedness for our flight Saturday afternoon.

And then the blizzard struck.

Its not that we didn’t know it was coming. We were just optimistic. But then, Saturday morning, we turned out the news and heard, “a historic snowstorm” . . . “10-20 inches in the city” . . . “canceling all flights” . . . “we’ve never seen anything like it!” Encouraging stuff.

Our flight was rescheduled for the next night at 8pm, which was great, because a lot of people didn’t even get rescheduled. Less than ideal, since traveling at night with my sleep-averse children is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I know how that shit goes down because we’ve been there – oh! how we’ve been there. As I say though, we were just thanking our lucky stars we had seats on something airborne. We decided to make the most of it and headed over to our good friend’s apartment for a pre-blizzard bagel party. We bundled the kids and played in the snow. We filed six months worth of bills and paperwork. We had sex. By the following afternoon, we were in great spirits, and oh-so-ready to rumble.

Until I noticed that Seconda had a fever.

It wasn’t high – 100.3 – but she had the glassy eyes, the bright-red face and the miserable moaning that signifies this was just the beginning. Now, in the summertime, when everyone’s pretty healthy, a little lowgrade fever’s not such a crisis. But in late December, with a swine flu epidemic still in play, and my grandmother, who takes care of Sec, sick in bed with a strep throat -- it didn’t look promising. I’d taken Primo on the plane when he had 104 fever, at the end of our “vacation” to San Francisco, and that was one of the most anxiety-producing experiences yet.

David and I figured since we really didn’t know what this fever was going to turn into, it wasn’t a good idea to take her on the airplane. So I graciously offered to stay with Sec while he went ahead with Primo, and we’d just catch a flight later in the week and meet them down South. That was wildly naïve. No seats nohow to Knoxville – not direct, not connecting, nothing.

Sec fell asleep in the middle of these proceedings, and that was the dealbreaker. Although nearly all other 2.5 year olds on earth are still taking their proscribed afternoon nap, Sec hasn’t slept during daytime hours in months. Even when I locked her in her crib tent, and even when she’s in the car or in the stroller and even when I beg her and bribe her, she never sleeps til darkness falls. Kid was sick. We cancelled the flights.

And then, Eureka! Mommy has an idea.

“Why not drive?” I ask David.

Why not drive?

WHY NOT DRIVE?

I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t drive to Tennessee in a single day with your two children under the age of five. In tomorrow’s post I will tell you about it, in detail, because we flipping DID IT.

Huddled Masses

So we had the whole in-law family in from Tennessee visiting last weekend and I’m only now writing because it has taken me an entire week to recuperate from the whirlwind tour of my fair city that we undertook. It was a veritable New-York-apoolooza, the kind you need to train for. Now next to my family, I love New York City more than anything out there, but that doesn’t mean I love all of New York, all the time.

I love Tom’s Restaurant and cherry lime rickeys for brunch.

I love Luger’s for David’s annual birthday dinner even if the waiters deride me because I refuse to eat the rare parts of the meat. I am just waiting for the day they give me a charcoal on my plate, like some kind of wacko Santa, because I order my meat “in between “medium and medium well.”

I love the Transit Museum, especially the assortment of subway cars from the early 1900s.

I love Lombardi's for pizza and Ferrara's for cannoli and I love dumplings and pork buns at Dim Sum and the space show at Hayden Planetarium.

But I gotta say, I do not love Liberty Island at high noon in mid-August. Between the hordes and the heat, it’s hard to appreciate your freedom. By the time we got back to Manhattan, we all felt like we truly understood the meaning of those famous words inscribed at her pedestal, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

“I always thought it was “be free,” I said,

“Me too,” said David, “But now it makes sense. After riding in that boat I am actually yearning to breathe free. It really smelled like shit.”

We were nothing if not huddled masses, me and David and his sister, trying to keep the kids from jumping overboard and dragging that behemoth of a double stroller up the stairs to the deck, losing the rest of our party in the thronging hordes of liberty-seekers.

The boat ride there and back and the super-intense security (at least they didn’t make the kids go through the air-blowing machine this time – Primo is still traumatized from last year) was definitely the worst of it. Once on the island, Primo plugged into the audio tour and was totally mesmerized for 40 minutes. It was also mood-lifting to hear him communicate with us at the top of his lungs, since he couldn’t quite understand how to remove his headphones.

“DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BERTHOLD?????”

“CAN I HAVE AN ICE CREAM????”

“NOW CAN OUR ADVENTURE BE OVER????”

And there, asking strangers to take group photos of us in front of Lady Liberty (and by the way, I cannot believe that anyone, even those from the farthest-off shores, even those who’ve never seen a camera before, would snap a picture of a family in front of the Statue of Liberty horizontally, landscape-style, so that the only glimpse of the magnificent icon is about ¾ of her pedestal), It was there that I recalled what a disastrous trip we had last year, when David and I took the kids for the first time to Liberty Island and they were both such insufferable little twits that I shouted at the top of my lungs, so loud that everyone around us stared,

“I AM NEVER HAVING ANOTHER CHILD!”

We love our Lady of the Harbor. A lot. We shout “hello!” to her every time we go over the Brooklyn Bridge and have a large, artsy print of her displayed prominently in the front entrance of our apartment. We know all sorts of trivia about the making of her, and pertinent documentaries on DVR that even Primo has watched. We love her so much that on the way home Seconda said, “When I grow up, I’m gonna climb to the TOP of the Statue of Liberty!:

I told her I’d be right there with her, as long as it was between the months of September and May.

Family Vacation

This post is coming to you directly from East Tennessee, folks, the heart of the Smoky Mountains. David, the kids and I are on what you might call a family vacation.

You might call it that but I’d urge you not to. Using the word “vacation” to describe the temporary relocation of oneself and one’s progeny in pursuit of diversion is a little misleading. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a real vacation with the kids. We’ve had lots of adventures against many different backdrops. We’ve licked gelatos in front of the Pantheon, we’ve whizzed over the Golden Gate Bridge, we’ve frolicked on beaches and mountainsides and crooned in rental cars and played tag in airports in many a city across this country. But was it a vacation? No, my readers, it was not.

A vacation is anything you do without the children. Like, for instance, when David and I went to get our teeth cleaned and sat in examination rooms that were across the hall from each other, that was a vacation. We got to chat a bit on the walk over, made provocative gestures across the hall to each other before the dental hygienists arrived and then we kissed with clean, slightly-sore mouths afterwards, and compared the sample mouthwashes we’d received. That was a vacation. Taking two kids under four on an airplane is no vacation. Period.

And listen, David and I are pros at air travel with the kids, because we’ve been doing this trip to Tennessee a few times a year since Primo was a few months old. So we know what we’re doing. I pack enough snacks to keep a small village fed for a week, including a secret stash of lollipops in case we run into unexpected delays or mishaps. I pack little presents purchased from the dollar bins at Target and wrapped in magazine pages, which prolongs the enjoyment of each item by a good minute. Coloring books, regular books, Play doh, magnets, stickers – my carry on is like a carnival of fun for toddlers and preschoolers.

I also have one other very important but challenging trick up my sleeve when we travel on planes with the kids. It is the most critical, the key element to successful air travel, the missing puzzle piece, the thing you cannot do without. It is . . . .

The first-ever mom amok cliffhanger! I warned you I was getting into some tantric shit. To find out, dear readers, you will have to tune in tomorrow. Or if you’d like, feel free to guess in the comments section. I will award whoever guesses the correct answer with one perfectly fresh New York bagel, type of your choosing, sent directly to your home. Cream cheese and lox to be added on your own.

Take a hike

On Saturday, I took a hike. Not a figurative one, but a bona-fide, bring-a-canteen, don-t-forget-your-compass, into-the-woods hike. I did it for the children.

It’s probably not surprising to discover that I’m not much of a hiker. I never was, being a city girl. But since I’ve had kids, I’ve been even less of a hiker. That’s because I am now obsessively terrified of bears.

My husband is from Eastern Tennessee, where bears abound. Seriously, they are everywhere. His mom has a picture on the fridge of a black bear on their back PORCH. This amazes me. If I saw a 200 pounder smashing his huge clawed paw on the very spot where I sit down to enjoy sweet tea, the last thing I would do is find my camera. But, you see, they’re used to it. They have bears everywhere. And apparently, bears aren’t really harmful. That’s what David said.

Excuse me if I don’t buy that.

“I may not be much of an outdoorsman but bears EAT PEOPLE,” came my retort.

“That rarely happens,” David assured me. But my brother-in-law, who’s a cop in David’s hometown told me in vivid detail about how a bear mauled a father and child hiking in the national park just last summer.

Also, I saw Grizzly Man. That shit haunts me.

Which brings me to our recent hike. Turns out Tennessee isn’t the only place with a bear problem. New Jersey has a shitload of them. I know because my parents have a place in the mountainous region of New Jersey (I was as surprised to discover mountains in NJ as you are). When we went hiking last summer, I saw a WARNING, an actual parks-department-sanctioned warning posted next to the park map, about the bears.

That’s when I started worrying about them in earnest.

“What are you supposed to do if you run into a bear in the woods?” I asked David in the car ride over to our hiking spot on Saturday.

“People say you should make a lot of noise and wave your arms and stomp, so they think you are bigger than you are.”

That’s when I started worrying about David as our hike leader.

“That sounds like a TERRIBLE idea,” I countered, “I thought you were supposed to stay quiet and slowly retreat.”

“Or you could do that,” he agreed.

“OK, do you have any idea what you are talking about here? I mean, I thought you KNEW about this sort of thing.”

“I do. I’ve seen lots of bears in the woods in Tennessee. One time Daddy and I ran into one just a few yards away.”

“And what did you do?”

“Daddy stomped his foot and then the bear stomped his foot and snorted.”

“So that doesn’t sound like it worked at all.”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t stand down. He was challenging Daddy.”

“Ok, so what HAPPENED for God’s sake?”

“Daddy dropped the donuts and we ran away.”

“Donuts?”

“Yeah, he brought a big garbage bag full of donuts into the woods to bait the bears so he could hunt them later.”

Now let us pause, readers, to contemplate a few things.

A. What kind of a mean, crazy hunter baits bears, and does so without a weapon?
B. How surprising is it that the bear wanted the donuts more than two human beings, of hardy stock?
C. How utterly unqualified is my husband to be leader of the hike?

I share these contemplations with David and his feelings get hurt.

“I was a Boy Scout!” he yelled.

“I was a Girl Scout,” I yelled back, “And I have the good sense to avoid feral animals whenever possible.”

But it was too late. We had already sold the kids on the idea and driven to the spot. So we hiked, and it was the most stressful 30 minutes in recent memory. Especially since I felt that it was my sole responsibility to look out for, and possibly beat off a bear.

“Why didn’t it occur to me to do a little research on bear safety this morning,” I muttered.
David gave me the malocchio.

“Children, I want you to use all your senses to observe the things that are going on around you. Alert Mommy if you notice anything unusual.”

“Nik!” said David sharply, and the subtext was, “I’ll maul you myself if you don’t shut up.”

“I want to walk to the deepest part of the woods where it is dark,” said Primo.

The farther we walked, the slimmer grew the probability of us reaching the car in time to escape the bear attack. Oh God, I thought, the children are so small, they’ll be the first ones the beast will go for, and he’ll probably be ravenous since he’s just now waking from his hibernation. I know I’m starving after a nap.

So I announced to Primo, “Soon you will be seeing s sign that it is time for us turn around, Let me know when you see it.”

A minute later he encountered a branch which had fallen across the trail and he said, excitedly, “It’s the sign! Time to turn around.”

We managed to make it back to the car where I calmed my frazzled nerves by eating most of the children’s Veggie Booty.

Why do I ever leave New York?