Another Beautiful Day in the Columbia Neighborhood

Get ready, folks: this is a long one.

October + New York City = Glorious.

Good to recognize and celebrate because everything I hear and read prepares me for the bitterness that is November. But right now, it is mid-60's and the leaves are changing and the sky is blue and the sweaters and boots are out in full force. I can't get enough.

Clay has been working super hard this week (midterms), so Will and I have been trying to get a bit creative in terms of what we will do and where we will go everyday. I am officially over the playgrounds; sure, they are helpful in that they are designed for kiddos and (usually) away from traffic, but the last few times I went I think I almost lost my mind with boredom. There is only so much staring at a 16 month-old in a sand box or in a swing that a girl can take. When I found myself making up silly songs like "What does a swing do? It goes UP and DOWN now give me a SMILE--no frowns!," I decided it was time to branch out. On a fluke, Will and I crossed through the Columbia main quad on our way home one day and BINGO! TONS of sunny stairs and lawns and grates and fountains and yes, even dozens of other parents and nannies who, like me, needed to feel a bit academic in the midst of playing for hours with a child whose only "words" are "dada dada" (subject of another post. I swear I will cover my child with kisses the first time he calls me mama). Being here also allowed me to--holla--break out my camera and capture some of the sweet faces I am lucky enough to see all day as well as some of the beautiful sights of our neighborhood.

Let us give you a little tour of our new home

(and in NYC, "home" must come to mean more than your address because Lord knows people need more space to breathe than 400 sq. feet):

Will LOVES the grates on the sidewalk. They might give me mini-heart attacks because a lot of them cover holes a million feet deep and subway cars moving a million miles an hour, but Will? Nope, not a worry in the world!

Columbia hosts a Farmer's Market 2 blocks long every Thursday and Sunday.

We walk there.

We buy apples and tomatoes and--if Clay's lucky--an insanely yummy foccacia pizza.

Does part of me miss actually going to a pumpkin patch and selecting just the right one to take home with us and set by our front door? Yes. Our building doesn't allow ANYTHING to be placed outside the door (no welcome mat, wreath, pumpkin, nada), so this year we will just look at this picture a lot and pretend they are ours :).

Mmmmm. Mums.

This IS The Big Apple, after all.

Our Farmer's Market. God bless them.

This is the Milano Market, one of our favorite stores to walk into, look at the beautiful food, and buy the cheapest thing they got. Will and I got Clay a study session treat here, and then Will graciously offered to rearrange their shelves. He rearranges our pantry and fridge daily. So thoughtful.

This is the Morningside Heights branch of the NYC Public Library. I love this place: DVDs, new releases, a HUGE children's collection, and the ability to get any book you want through their hold system makes me a frequent library user.

Our subway stop. Gotta love the 1 train.

Our local commute down Broadway.

We pass Barnard College along the way.

And here is Will when I ask him if he wants to go outside. Notice he is on the chair. Yup, Will is no longer a baby. He is now a monkey. He climbs on EVERYTHING. He also figured out that jumping on the furniture after climbing on it is OH-SO-FUN, and when Mama turns on the music...woah, watch out. Life doesn't get much better :-).

Thumbs-up for NYC, Mama. So much happening outside our window!

Here we are in the Teacher's College courtyard. The new puddles were calling Will's name...

...and the stair railing was calling Daddy's.

Will, don't get any ideas.

Where's Will?

Imagine our delight when we walked up to the quad yesterday to find yellow balloons tied to every post. See the tongue? That means he is HAPPY!

There's the tongue again...

"Hey, Mama!"

One of my new favorite pictures. I love the greenish color of the railing.

Aha, another grate. And this one has leaves we can stuff in the cracks. Double win!

Here are some pictures from our return visit this morning.

Ashley Taylor Nichols, this picture is for you and in honor of Nick's birthday on Thursday.

This kid is ready to ride.

Will made a new friend at the fountain. ADORABLE.

Here they are dancing together; turns out she also loves grates and metal covers. She also has GREAT taste in shoes; look at those awesome pink flats!

A friend told me in an email this week that she "hoped NYC was starting to feel like home." In a weird but wonderful way, it is. We don't have a lot of friends here yet, and our apartment reflects none of our style, but the fact that the three of us (four--sorry, Cam) are here together and having adventures together makes it home.

I am also in a very different place emotionally than I expected to be, at least this quickly. I am so happy being a "stay at home" mom. The biggest difference I feel is a lack of stress. Teaching is a life calling for me, but it always involved a level of stress that didn't disappear every year until June. I always had dozens of papers to grade, always had books to read, always had assignments to write and emails to answer and students to motivate more thoughtfully and effectively. Teaching, like many jobs, is a job you take home with you. I woke up most mornings feeling some level of stress and urgency, and I usually went to bed feeling like I should work more if only I wasn't so tired. Weekends were a glorious break, but the work still hung over me, and by the time Sunday came along, it wasn't noon before I felt like I had to get back to work in order to be prepared for the next day. The rewards of teaching are unbelievable, but good teaching requires a daily commitment to excellence and thoroughness.

Waking up without stress--AND with the thought that I get to be with Will all day long--is the most freeing feeling I have ever known. And it makes me so happy and at peace. I think I am a more relaxed person now, a more flexible person now, a more loving person now.

I also have to admit that I am more aware than ever that Will is a gift I don't deserve and yet one I have wished for for years. I don't want to miss this time. Sometimes when I watch him climb all over the Columbia campus, I think to myself, "He is going to be grown up before you know it." And this morning, Will picked the book "I'll Love You Forever" off the Barnes and Noble shelf for me to read (I use that term loosely--books rarely hold his attention these days) and I felt silly for getting emotional over this children's story about the lifetime bond between mothers and sons. What it ultimately comes down to, for me, right now, is that I want to be with Will. This year and this situation affords me that opportunity, and thus I am grateful we took this risk and made this change.

To be completely honest, though, a large reason why I feel so at peace with not working is because I am still kinda working. I am tutoring brothers 3-4 nights a week, teaching an online class through JHU, editing articles for TeenInk magazine, and possibly working as an editor and writer for a friend's new business. It's insane to admit this, but I am able to stay home with Will and make more than I did as a teacher. I don't know if I should jump up and down about that or despair the fact that teachers make so little for all the work they do, but somehow I landed a few opportunities that enable me to feel both scheduling and financial freedom.

I don't know what the future holds for us as a family, for Clay's job, for my professional growth, but we are a little family loving each other like crazy in a little apartment in a city so big it blows my mind. The world is an unpredictable community that lies just outside our apartment door, but inside this new home of ours, we're good.