Cold Hands Warm Heart
We were in line at Dunkin Donuts. An elderly lady stood behind me in line. She clutched my arm. Her hands were cold. "Oh you're so warm!" She said. "I'm always cold." "You know what they say? Cold hands, warm heart." I said with a smile. I instinctively rubbed her hand to warm it. "That feels so nice." She said smiling back. "I can't stand for so long." She said. "You can go ahead of me in line." I told her. "Do you have grandkids?" I asked. "Oh sure. They're all almost through college." She replied. "Nice." I replied "Any great grandkids?" "Not yet. Soon!" She said with a laugh. I laughed too. "Are those yours?" She said pointing to Ari and Samara who were looking at the juice cooler. "Yes. They are." "Beautiful," she said. I was still rubbing her cold hand. "Here, buy something for the kids." With that she handed me three dollars. I bought donuts. There is good in the world.
KneeBouncers- Great Play with Purpose
A few years back, I found an awesome site for kids called Kneebouncers. It allowed Ari (who was two at the time) to use my computer without breaking it and learn letters, numbers, shapes, and colors! When I heard that Kneebouncers had released an IPad app called Great Play with Purpose, I was excited for Samara to get in on the action. So I wrote to the guys over at Kneebouncers and asked if we could give it a try. They graciously agreed!Samara had a great time on the Kneebouncers app learning colors through popping balloons: She learned number and letters: And she moved on to some shapes! She had the help of Freddy the bear 🙂 She also got to play with a train: Samara highly recommends the Kneebouncers Great Play With Purpose app. If you want to check it out for your kid, go to the app store and look up "KneeBouncers Great Play with Purpose" or just click here!
Vegan À La Mode – A Cookbook Giveaway!
When I was at BlogHer13', I attended a writing seminar on how to transform a blog into a book. One of the panelists at that seminar was Hannah Kaminsky. I was impressed by how articulate she was when she revealed her path toward getting published. Hannah is a tenacious young woman. She's already a successful published author in her early twenties. The unique part of her journey is that she was able to publish her vegan cookbooks without a literary agent. She pitched her proposal directly to publishers and she was picked up by a publishing house directly. I was impressed by her perseverance and her humility.I was excited when Hannah agreed to let me giveaway Vegan À La Mode, her vegan ice cream cookbook! First of all, all the ice cream looks delicious. Secondly the recipes have awesome titles like "Cookie Monster Ice Cream," which I'm dying to try. Other recipes include "Toasted Marshmallow Ice Cream" "Cheesecake Ice Cream" "Double Chocolate Fudge Chunk Ice Cream" and "Hint of Mint Chocolate Sorbet" Seriously, check this out: I don't know about you, but that belongs in my belly. So check it out guys, Lauren from Skyhorse Publishing agreed to give away FIVE copies [...]
The Circle Line Liberty Cruise!
This morning we were scheduled to attend the Circle Line Radio Disney Kids Cruise. As our luck would have it, on the way to our to the 10:00am cruise, we were in a taxi and got stuck in traffic on 42nd Street behind a giant tow truck. I kept willing the truck to move faster in my mind, but it didn't listen to me.We got the dock of The Circle Line at 10:07am and found that the Kids Cruise had already left. I didn't want to let my kids down, so I went into the Circle Line office and asked if they would let us attend a different cruise instead. They graciously allowed us to hop on board the Liberty Cruise at 10:45am. The kids were psyched.** The Liberty Cruise is 75 minutes long. I was nervous that the kids would melt down and it would be too long for them. It turned out it was the complete opposite. They were fascinated with all the scenery. Ari took this picture! They especially loved looking out at the water. There's something about being around water that [...]
Samara the Walker
Samara loves to walk. I've never seen a 2 year old walk as much as she does. I tested her walking ability out yesterday. We started out from our house and we walked 1/2 a mile down 4th Avenue toward the third street bridge. At any moment I was sure that she would stop and ask me to carry her, but she didn't. She walked on. It was a challenge for me, because my inclination as a native New Yorker is to walk fast. But with Samara holding my hand, I was forced to slow down my pace. We took turns pointing put trees to each other and different colored bicycles. As we were crossing the third street bridge in the middle of the Gowanus Canal, Samara began to cry. She sat down so we could get a better view of the gray murky water. "Samara! We have to go. We're going to be late. Ari's waiting for us at school." I pleaded with her. She reached her arms up and I knew she needed a break. So I carried her a few blocks over the bridge. Then I challenged her again: "Do you want to walk?" I asked her. [...]
An Interview With Selfish Mom – Amy Oztan
Over the years I've met some really awesome people on Twitter. One of them is Amy Oztan AKA Selfish Mom. We both live in Brooklyn, and I can remember bonding when the Brooklyn tornado happened a couple of years ago. Amy is awesome. I wrote her an email and asked if I could interview her for OS/NS Mom. She invited me over to her place in Clinton Hill so I could find out more about her and how she got into blogging. I told her I'd love to come over and I even brought her a pumpkin banana chocolate chip muffin from Blue Sky Bakery! After hanging out and talking with Amy, I think she should change her name to "Honest Mom." She's a genuine human being. We bonded over the fact that we're both Libras who come from performing arts backgrounds. Check out what she's has to say about how she started Selfish Mom, how her daughter's name wasn't inspired by the movie Shrek, and how her last name is not a random city in Texas. Amy is a real down-to-earth person. Her best piece of blogging advice to those of you starting out: be yourself!
A Sandwich Teaches Me a Lesson
I was dreading getting up this morning. I looked at the time on my phone and it said 7:14. I closed my eyes and opened them again to find that it was 7:34. I panicked and woke Ari up. I told him we were going to be late. I went into kitchen, grabbed two pieces of bread and began to spread peanut butter on one and honey on the other. As I held the butter knife over the bread and began to spread the peanut butter I felt the thoughts begin to seep into my mind slowly at first like grains of sand and then more forcefully like large hail stones beating down on me. It's Tuesday. There's only three more slices of bread. I need to buy more bread. My book isn't finished. I've written 92 pages. But I told everyone I wrote a book because I like to exaggerate sometimes in the hopes that if I say it, it will actually happen. I can't write if I have to potty train Samara and pick up Ari from school. I'm also at a difficult spot in my story. I'm afraid to go on and face what I have to [...]
An Elderly Man Makes My Day
Ari, Samara and I went to Blue Sky Bakery this morning for muffins. When we were getting ready to leave, I noticed that Samara had thrown a bunch of books on the floor. Blue Sky has a variety of children's books for kids to read. I asked Samara and Ari to pick up all the books from the floor and put them back on the bookshelf. Samara responded by screaming "No!" at me. I said:"Okay, then we're not going to ride the scooter home."She finally conceded and put the books away with Ari's help.Then I asked the kids to put their used plates and cups in the garbage can. They resisted at first but they begrudgingly did it.Finally, when we were getting ready to leave, I asked that Ari assist Samara with her balance bike. She needed a hand getting out of the door. It was too heavy for her to carry and I knew that he could help her. He responded by ignoring me and riding his scooter down the block. I kindly reminded him that we wouldn't be riding the bike or scooter home unless he helped his sister."Okay." He said. With that he held the door and [...]
Fog
It's gray, thick and all encompassing. I can feel it on my face. It's surrounds me like a dense itchy uncomfortable blanket. I want to move but I can't see a thing, except for gray. It's deep dark gray. I am at the mercy of it.I move slowly and cautiously. My feet are bare. I can feel the condensation on my toes. I close my eyes. It's black when they're closed, but when I open them the grayness pierces them. My face is covered with droplets. I keep blinking my eyes because they're saturated.Step by step.Inch by inch.I am walking into the gray. It all looks the same. But I know on the other side of this, there is clean air and I will be able to breathe it.On the other side of this fog he will be standing there. He will take my hand and we will walk together side by side onto the sand. Our feet will touch the cool wet sand together and I will not walk alone.I lift my foot with the knowledge that this grayness is not forever. It's only a passing thing. I will step one foot at a time through this fog.I will [...]
Transformation
The caterpillar lay there in her cocoon. She was snug in there, warm and tightly wound. Yet she felt frozen. She was unable to move. As she sat waiting impatiently for something to happen, she started to feel it little by little. It began as a tingling sensation in her tail. Slowly, the feeling moved little by little up from her tail vertebrae by vertebrae. The tingling vibrated from her tail up each part of her. The sensation spread through her small body like a syringe filling with blood. There was tingling from her tail all the way up through her tiny head. Her whole body was full of vibration. She knew that this was the sign of something to come. She listened to the vibration. She asked it what it meant. She told it she was scared. She didn't know when it would stop or if it would stop. The tiny caterpillar was infused not only with vibration but with spirit. She closed her eyes and breathed into the vibration. Just as she took a deep breath in the tingling feeling increased. Her body twitched all over. It was as if lightning has struck her. She convulsed but she [...]
I Know Everything!
I think I may have the most stubborn child alive. As we were walking to school this morning, Ari decided that he was "too tired to walk" and he "didn't want to hold my hand." Meanwhile, we managed to pass at least 10 children on the way to school who were willingly holding their mother's hands. "Okay," I said sighing "You can walk by yourself." I reluctantly let go of his hand (I say reluctantly because he walks slower when he's not holding my hand and we were already running late) and he began to climb on the gate of a brownstone we were passing. "Ari!" I shouted "This is not play time! We are late for school! If you don't hold my hand we can't go on the ride after school!" I promised him if he listened to me he was allowed to ride one of those quarter run car machine toy things that was outside of a toy store we'd passed. "I'm too tired to walk fast! I don't wanna hold your hand! My arms and legs hurt! I don't wanna walk!" He screamed "Ari," I began "The reason you're tired is because you refused to go to [...]
Ari’s First Day of Kindergarten
Today was Ari's first day of Kindergarten. I set the alarm for 6:30am, but we ended up sleeping in until 7:30am. We were used to our summer non-schedule of sleeping in. As soon as Ari was up and dressed and ready to go, he went to say goodbye to Samara. I almost cried as he opened her door and said:"It's my first day of School, Samara. I'm gonna miss you." Next we stopped by Canteen for a chocolate muffin. It was the only way I could bribe Ari to leave the house before 8am. Then we went to the taxi dispatch stand on my block and begged the dispatcher to look for an available driver to get us to school. We were really late. Unfortunately, the dispatcher was cranky. "Hi sir, are there any drivers available? We're really late for the first day of school." I said pleading with him. "Are you with somebody?" He said confused. "I don't see anybody with you." Then it occurred to me that Ari was too short for him to see since he was behind a glass window and elevated several feet above the ground. "Yes yes! I'm with my five year old son." [...]
Fire Island Hotel and Resort – My Awesome Stay and a Chance to Win a FREE NIGHT!
Fire Island has always held a special place in my heart. One of the reasons for this is because my parents met there. I can remember spending summers there as a child and loving the beach and the bay. I used to paint seashells and sell them on the beach. Fire Island is (and will always be) a magical place for me and my family. Last summer when we went to Fire Island, we stayed at The Fire Island Hotel and Resort in Ocean Bay Park It was such an awesome experience (for the kids especially) that I called the Fire Island Hotel and Resort this year and asked if we could stay there again for three nights during the first week of September** The Fire Island Hotel and Resort booked us a cabin with a double bed and we were on our way to Fire Island! But first we got on the Long Island Railroad and headed to Bayshore to catch the ferry to Fire Island. We got off the ferry and headed to the Fire Island Hotel and Resort, which was a five minute walk from the ferry in Ocean Bay Park. We were greeted by the lovely [...]
Starbucks Won’t Let This Girl Keep Her Hair Blue – This and Other Stereotypes
I met a girl named Cindy on the B train. She had the most gorgeous blue tipped hair. I had to stop her because it was so beautiful I wanted to know what dye she used. "Oh, I use Adore." She said."I've heard of Adore!" I said "My friend used a combination of Adore and Pravana but she preferred Adore. It's cheaper right?" I asked."Yeah, it's like $3.00.""Awesome. I want to redo this part of my hair." I said pointing to the pinkish part of my hair underneath my natural brown color. "Do you think you'll do blue?" She asked."Maybe," I said. " I like the darker blue you have there. So what do you do?" I asked Cindy."I work for Starbucks." She said with a half smile."Nice. I've heard their health benefits are pretty decent.""They are. But..." She paused "They're making me take this out." She said with a frown pointing to her blue tipped hair"Are you serious?" I asked in disbelief. "Why?""They have a strict appearance code. You're not allowed to have weird colored hair.""I don't understand." I said. "That makes no sense."And I truly did not understand whatsoever. I don't understand how having blue hair can effect [...]