I heart NY, even with tornadoes

We had one of those I heart NY weekends. Who would not be suffused with passion for our great city when their day consisted of the following activities:

Lunch of pierogies and borscht at Veselka. (When the waitress saw my five year-old eat an adult portion of pierogies, she said, “You must be Ukrainian!”)

Endless browsing and reading at the Strand. (OK, almost all of it was spent in the children’s section but hey, I now get my kicks finding half-price, wacked-out versions of Snow White from Sweden – so sue me).

A full tour of Halloween Adventure, where the kids tried on every bloody, mangled, ghoulish, creepy, horror-show mask they could find. My children are balls-out crazy about Halloween and their inaugural trip to the mecca of creepy costumes was good research for their year’s masterpieces.

Though that was already a full day, we decided to stop off on the Lower East Side and visit our new favorite playground (both newly-constructed and new to us) on Hester Street. This playground rocks our universe. It has a huge red rope spiderweb

climbing structure which kids can interact with in about 20 different

ways. There were kids climbing horizontally and vertically and hanging under it and slipping through it and laying on it. This red rope DELIVERED. The kids’ other favorite spot was this area on the floor made up of metal squares which played like bells when you jumped on them. The whimsy of this just about slays me. Seriously.

Ahhh, New York. Its got to be this good to make up for the fact that we now have tornadoes.

Something is living under my son’s bed and you’ll never guess what

“There is a vegetarian bud-lah living under my bed,” says Primo in the car, on our way home from chowing down pierogies at Veselka.

“A what?” I reply.

“A vegetarian budlah living under my bed,” he repeats.

“A vegetarian what?”

“Buuuuuud-lah”

“A bird lore?”

“BUDLAH!”

“Butt lure?”

“Budlah budlah, Mommy, a vegetarian budlah.”

“Is this a real word or one you made up?”

“It’s a real word! The person who brings you things!”

And then I realize what he’s been saying this whole time, pretty clearly, is “butler.”

“There is a vegetarian butler living under your bed?”

“Yes!” he says, relieved.

Then David and I laughed so hard it hurt. And Primo laughed too.

“That sounds FANTASTIC!” I said, “I’d love to have a vegetarian butler living under my bed.”

“You would?”

“Absolutely. Its just the thing we need in our new place.”

I'm not joking, either. So if you know a good non-meat-eating butler who works for free , , ,