Little Kids, Big City: Tales from a Real House in New York City (With Lessons on Life and Love for Your Own Concrete Jungle) (18 page)

Read Little Kids, Big City: Tales from a Real House in New York City (With Lessons on Life and Love for Your Own Concrete Jungle) Online

Authors: Alex McCord,Simon van Kempen

TOP 20 BEDTIME STORIES:
 
20.
Asterix the Gaul by Albert Uderzo
19.
The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by
Mordecai Gerstein
18.
Et Si Le Loup y’Etait by Maït Laboudigue
17.
Le Monde Merveilleux des mes Trois Ans by
Sophie Maraval Hutin
16.
The Very Silly Shark by Jack Tickle
15.
Aussie Jingle Bells by Colin Buchanan
14. Chien de Lune by David Spence
13.
I Live in Brooklyn by Mari Takabayashi
12. Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox
One Small Place by the Sea by Barbara Brenner
10. Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd
9. The Terrible Underpants by Kaz Cooke
8. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
7. All the poetry from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
6. The Icky Sticky Frog by Dawn Bentley
5. Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel
4.
The Australian Twelve Days of Christmas by
Heath Mackenzie
3.
Dr Dog by Babette Cole
2.
The Magic School Bus Series by Joanna Cole
1.
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia
Lee Burton
 
TOP 10 LULLABIES:
 
10. “Mack The Knife by Three Penny Opera
9. “Hit The Road, Jack” by Percy Mayfield/Ray Charles
8. “Imagine by John Lennon
7. “All That Jazz from Chicago
6. “Goodnight My Someone from The Music Man
5. “People Will Say We’re In Love by Oklahoma
4. “The Ballad of Jenny by Three Penny Opera
3. Brahm’s“Lullaby” with made up lyrics by Alex
2. “Tomorrow” from Annie
1. “When You’re Good To Mama from Chicago
 
 
Chapter 11
 
Children Like Shiny Objects
 
Adventures with Valuables and Other Household Knick-Knacks
 
Just about every new parent has had a knee-jerk reaction where they want to remove anything that could possibly harm their child, or that their child could destroy, from the home. This includes (but is not limited to) anything poisonous, dangerous or breakable. No tchotchkes, nothing small enough to fit in their mouths, nothing they could tear apart. Nothing messy, nothing spilly, nothing trashy, nothing silly. In short, live in an empty house with no windows. Childproofing begins with keeping children safe from danger within the house, but it doesn’t stop there. Unless parents decide to pad the floors and walls, remove anything remotely nice from the home, sit and sleep on the floor to prevent falls and only eat with spoons, childproofing also includes teaching your children how to respect furniture and valuables and to learn to live in a grown-up (albeit kid-friendly) environment.
 
Alex
By the time François was one we were getting itchy feet. Not about the Big City or our favorite part, Brooklyn—we loved the borough and couldn’t imagine leaving. It was our apartment. Between the annoying neighbors and the increasing feeling that the neighborhood, Park Slope, was turning from a laid-back naturalist preserve to an increasingly dogmatic commune, we felt there might be something better just around the corner. When we bought an apartment two years previously, we both knew it was a starter apartment and wouldn’t stay long. With one baby and plans for another, we began thinking that just a terrace didn’t cut it—with kids we needed a yard. The point was driven home one afternoon when one of our cats chased a squirrel off the terrace and fell to her death (which occurred 10 hours after we’d run up a $2,000 vet bill frantically trying to save her life). François was beginning to walk, and I’d just discovered I was pregnant with Johan. In 2005 the real estate market was hot, hot, hot and we’d recently completed a gut renovation with all the bells and whistles every apartment-hunting couple in the city demanded. We were very lucky to a) find a couple willing to pay more than double our original purchase price for the triplex, and b) find a townhouse in an even better neighborhood in Brooklyn with a garden and a grassy yard for the right price. The day we moved in, not-quite-two-year-old François spent an hour running from the front of the house, out the back door and to the end of the yard. He was amazed, and we were proud to have solved our concrete jungle issue. Now, at 6:30 a.m. when the boys are up on a Saturday or when they want to spend “just five minutes” making snow angels, we can open the back door and let them at it, and instead of spending half an hour packing up a bag with extra mittens and making sure they have all the pieces of their snowsuits together, I can have them throw boots and a coat on over their PJs, and five minutes later throw two soaking wet, happy boys into a hot bath.
The townhouse we bought had great “bones” and original detail but needed renovation. We love to gut places and create spaces we relish, and began making plans to do the same with our new house. Over a period of about 22 months we dug our basement down two feet, underpinned the foundation, removed the back wall of the house on two floors, and finally did the cosmetics as well.
Prior to the renovation, we let quite a few things slide because we knew we’d be tearing out interiors and we had two little boys who spilled things and broke things and tripped while carrying markers. When our family was photographed at home for
New York
magazine, I didn’t even notice that there was crayon on the wall until I saw the published picture. Knowing that the floors were going to be ripped up anyway, I was less inclined to be alarmed when I saw Johan prying up pieces of floorboard in the corner. With two boys at varying degrees of toilet training, we mopped the floors often and didn’t worry much about what got deposited on them. If François wanted to pick up a miniature hammer and help Daddy smash a plaster façade that someone had tastelessly put up over the fireplace that was fine with me. Although it wasn’t the only reason, we did have it in the backs of our minds that the longer we took with our renovation, the less likely we’d be to have boys who couldn’t understand that it wasn’t OK to draw on the walls and lick the furniture. Well, we’re still working on the licking. Luckily, by the time we finished our home renovation, both boys were well out of diapers and past the handprints on the wall phase. They do like to stand on one kitchen counter and try to fly to the other, but I think I was still doing that at age eight or nine, so there’s no point in trying to thwart genetics.
 
Partners in Crime
 
During the work we packed up everything in the house we didn’t use often, and while doing so, I put all my jewelry in a lock box for safekeeping. Now, we’re not billionaires and I don’t own the Hope Diamond, but I am lucky enough to own several beautiful pieces that are more than a little valuable. We didn’t want to move out of the house completely—we’d done that while gutting our previous apartment and felt it was a mistake, so we created a “green zone” within the house that we lived in while construction went on around us. As we moved our green zone around the house, we moved the jewelry lock box as well. While tidying up on a Sunday afternoon, I noticed that one pair of earrings and a necklace were missing. They were not a matching set, and I had just recently worn each of them to different events. I felt sure that I would have noticed if they had been gone long. I tried to retrace my steps after each event and remembered putting them away on both occasions. Where, then, could they be? Over the next three days I became more anxious as I checked all the various places besides the jewelry drawer where they might have been left. Makeup kit, no. Interior pockets of each purse I’d carried in the last week, no. On Thursday, just as I was trying to remember whether these pieces had been added to our policy the last time I updated our insurance, I opened the lock box to get out another pair of earrings, and was very surprised to find the missing pieces safe in the box. A little voice behind me asked, “Is that the right place for them, Mommy?” I whirled around to find François smiling at me hopefully. I asked what he meant. “On Sunday when you were packing, I took those out. I put them in my pocket and when I was done, I put them back.” My dear son carried several thousand dollars worth of jewelry around in his jeans pocket for a day or two including to school and back, then thoughtfully returned them?!? I have no idea why he wanted them or what he did with them other than carrying them around, but they appeared unscathed. This presented a quandary. On the one hand, I was pitifully grateful that he’d brought them back. On the other, he should never have taken them out to begin with. I carefully explained this to him, and we forged a deal that he would be allowed to hold or try on my jewelry, but only with me supervising. I can live with that.
 
Keys, Jewelry, It All Tastes Good
 
It’s not just shiny objects but gooey ones, too, that attract little fingers. While writing a business proposal one afternoon, François and Johan ran up behind me. “What kind of toothpaste is this, Mommy?” I turned around and there they were, brandishing a positively ancient tube of, ahem, personal lubricant. Assessing the damage, I asked, “You didn’t brush your teeth with it, did you?” “No, we wanted to find out what flavor it was first.” Whew. “That’s not toothpaste, guys.” “What is it, Mommy?” Thinking fast, I said, “It’s lubricant. You use it to get yourself unstuck, say if you got your hand or your head stuck in a fence.” We had just read a funny story about a girl who threw a tantrum and stuck her head in a fence—her rescue involved a neighbor putting butter on her neck—so I thought they might understand. “OK, we understand you, Mommy,” said François. Now, of course I’ve set myself up to hear the words, “Mom, I’m stuck! Get the KY!!” Luckily it hasn’t happened yet. They are probably waiting for our next cocktail party.
Our boys also love shoes. This is not particularly profound information, as both Mommy and Daddy share this obsession. I have a few precious pairs of sandals with fun things like crystals, gold roping, seashells and beads on them, which are tantalizing and tempting to young boys. After a few attempts at wearing my heels, they realized there was not much fun in walking like grown-up girls and did other things like use them as puppets. I have to say, in the garden when we’re having a cocktail at 6 p.m., it’s kind of fun to watch their Roberto Cavalli puppet theatre with a seashell mermaid battling a crystal leafy tree against a backdrop of the setting sun.

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