Over The Weekend

After driving in circles for 20 minutes looking for a parking spot, we abandoned our initial plans of shopping at Columbus Circle on Saturday and drove over to the east side where we had lunch at Hummus Kitchen and then dessert at our new favorite Maison Kayser (we just can't help ourselves). 

The weather was beautiful Saturday, but turned cold and rainy Sunday, so we escaped the elements and went to the Met after church to see the new Andy Warhol exhibit (I'll try to post some pictures from our museum outing later this week - little mister was very cute there taking in all of the art) and then enjoyed lunch at Le Pain Quotidien.  After lunch we warmed up at a Starbuck's on Madison Avenue that happened to be packed with not just several Buddhist monks, but also several Scandinavian tourists so Olin was completely occupied by people watching which meant that Josh and I were able to enjoy our coffee in peace!

Olin has the day off for Columbus Day (big surprise!) so it's still the weekend for two of us over here!  Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

A Little Video

One of Olin's favorite activities currently is spending time in his closet with all of his things.  He sits in there and pulls books off their shelves and talks to himself.  Thought you all might enjoy this little video of Chatty Cathy doing just that. 

Oh, and please don't judge the messy closet - even with as much as we move (and thus purge) we still have way too much stuff for this tiny apartment!

Over The Weekend

We had another lovely weekend in the city - we are really enjoying the beautiful autumn weather.  On Saturday, nostalgic for our trip to Stockholm a few years ago, we decided to have Swedish Day which entailed a visit to the Swedish Church (Svenska Kyrkan) in midtown for their famous homemade cinnamon rolls (or kanelbulle, in Swedish) and coffee.  The rolls are made by the church's cleaning lady and are served in the church's beautiful two-story reading room.  Our rolls were served by a very sweet Swedish lady who comes from the area of Sweden that neighbors my family's Småland region.  She even taught us a few Swedish words, which is the only reason why I knew the Swedish word for cinnamon rolls above - geez, that language is tough!  We also found a book of Swedish phrases for Olin and bought some packaged Swedish cookies, that we later noticed were from IKEA, but delicious nonetheless. 

While we were in the neighborhood, we took a stroll through Saks and Olin loved the music in the store.  He had some great dance moves going from his stroller and was really entertaining the other shoppers.

We ended Swedish Day with the most delicious Swedish meatballs at the always wonderful Smorgas Chef in the West Village.  Olin was so funny at dinner - he had Josh's phone and kept smiling and showing the phone to everyone around us - the hostess, our server, the other patrons - like he was showing them something very interesting.  We think that he was mimicing Josh and I when we show each other our phones. 

On Sunday, Olin fell asleep in the car on the way home from church, muffin in hand, so we kept driving all the way to New Jersey to do a little shopping at Target.  In New Jersey, we had a, dare I say, blissful lunch at Panera before we went shopping.  I think it was perhaps little mister's best performance yet in a restaurant... Josh was even able to have a second cup of coffee for goodness sake!  I don't want to jinx anything, but maybe we are turning a corner on restaurant performance!

Hope everyone had a great weekend and Happy October (it's birthday month around here)!

A Family "Picnic"

Last Friday, Olin's school held a family picnic to celebrate the start of the new school year.  Actually, they use the term "picnic" loosely because the school didn't provide anything for the gathering, but rather asked that each family bring their own food and entertainment.  So perhaps I should say that the school coordinated a picnic for the families.

Anyway, because our family's social representative, Josh, couldn't join us, I figured that Olin and I would make a 15 minute appearance and then head home.  So rather than pack a proper picnic, I stopped at the health food store downstairs on my way to the school and picked up a coconut water and oatmeal cookies for Olin and an iced tea and Kind bar for me.  Well, as soon as I left the store, I remembered the school's strict "no nuts" policy - the main ingredient in my Kind bar, so I frantically ate it on my five block walk to the school for fear that Olin would be asked to leave the school if I were to bring a nut even remotely close to one of the children. 

Also, the school interestingly scheduled the picnic for 4pm although school ends at 3:30pm and the picnic site was a 2 minute walk away.  It's not easy to occupy a toddler for a half hour on the residential streets of NYC, so we walked very slow to the picnic, but still arrived at 3:40pm, which meant my plan to stay for 15 minutes would have us departing before the picnic even began so already my plan was doomed.

So there we are, Olin with his little cookies and drink and me with just my drink while the other parents start to unpack loads of cut up fruit and vegetables, platters of cheese and crackers, hummus, baked goods...  one mom even brought wine.  Luckily for me, Olin didn't seem to mind.   In fact, he was not remotely interested in food.  If it appears from the pictures that all he did was run around, it's because he did.  While all the other children sat nicely with their parents on their picnic blankets, Olin made laps around the park - with me in tow or with one of his teachers, he really didn't care - he just had to be in motion at all times. 

The picnic actually ended up to be a good time - it was nice to have conversations with the other parents rather than just our usual exchange of 'hello's' at drop-off and pick-up.  We had such a nice time that we ended up staying nearly an hour and a half and only left when Olin started to melt down (I later learned that he did not nap at all during the day).  The melt down surprised us all... it surprised his teachers because up to this point they had never seen him cry, which surprised me that he hadn't cried once yet in his class because he sure doesn't have a problem shedding tears at home, in stores, in restaurants, in the car or pretty much anywhere!

Hopefully next year, Josh will be able to join us because we very much missed his presence and now that I know the drill, I vow that the Burgher family will have the BEST picnic spread next year!

P.S. That large grate that Olin is sitting on in the picture above is actually over underground train tracks.  When the train goes by, the children go crazy with excitement - it's very cute!

Shower Love

On most nights, Olin approaches his bath with indifference at best so imagine our surprise when he lost his mind with delight when we put him in the shower over the weekend with the hope of unclogging his little nose.  We have continued the showers throughout the week as this cold keeps hanging on and I swear, he would stay in there for hours if we let him.  Perhaps his response to the shower is solely due to the sinus relief the steam provides or maybe he really is more of a shower guy.  I kind of hope it's the former because I am starting to worry that we created a little shower monster and we may never get him in the bathtub again!