The Bull and the Memorial

I've been in New York City twice before, and both times were this year and were trips for my job.  The first time I stayed near Times Square, so at least I got to see some things around there.  The second time I stayed in lower Manhattan, but it was a quick trip so there was no time for me to see anything extra.  Today I'm in NYC again, as I had meetings during the day today but actually had some free time in the late afternoon and evening, so I decided to use the time to see some sights.  

My last meeting of the day was in a building right by the famous Wall Street Bull.  Or at least I thought it was the Wall Street Bull.  It is a bull, but it's not on Wall Street.  Thanks to the fine ladies and gentlement of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the bull is now blocked off, and a cop is stationed there full-time to manage the long line of people to ensure only one person or small group at a time can be by the bull.  Being a tourist, I of course wanted a picture with the bull, but since I didn't have a burning desire to touch its nose, horns, or any other part of it, I settled for a quick picture from outside the fencing.

I then looked up where Wall Street actually was (a few blocks away), found it, and walked all the way down it, seeing the famous buildings along the way.  I also saw the last bastion of Occupy Wall Streeters, where five disheveled rebels were cordoned off into their own small designated area from which they were free to both yell and smell.

I stayed at the W New York Downtown, which overlooks the World Trade Center site.  They are still in the process of building the new WTC skyscrapers around the perimeter, but in the center is the 9/11 Memorial which is essentially complete, with the exception of the museum, so I went to see it.  In the footprint of each of the twin towers is a square pool with water flowing down the sides, across the base, and into a void in the center.  The names of all the victims are inscribed into the edges around both pools.  In the picture above you can see that part of what appears to be the skyline behind me is actually one of the new towers reflecting the skyline opposite from it.  The memorial was really nicely done, and I got to spend the remainder of the evening walking around and reflecting on the most significant world event of my lifetime.  I'm really glad I had the opportunity to see it.

Bottle, Please

Clara is still not loving solids.  As with most babies who aren't very fond of their food, she protests by trying to shut her mouth, and the food ends up on her face.  Here she stares at me, almost pleading me with her eyes to stop this madness.

A New Kind of Fun

I wasn't planning to introduce Joshua to playdough until he was a little older, but we got a free sample when we bought him some shoes recently so I decided to try it out. He doesn't really understand that you can mold it into imaginary things that much yet. And when I make things with it, he mostly finds value in destroying them. But he really thinks it's pretty awesome that you can make lots of balls out of it (since balls are his favorite thing in the world) and he also really likes stabbing it with a fork. We have talked a lot about how it's not for eating, just for playing and that we don't throw it so it's going pretty well and he seems to be enjoying it.

Summertime!

This weekend we enjoyed the unofficial start to summer by enjoying the beautiful weather and grilling not once, but twice. Here Jason grills us some steaks. We also enjoyed burgers yesterday. It was a great weekend, made all the better with good food.

Third Haircut

Joshua's hair has been getting a little out of control lately.  I've been traveling and we've just been busy, so I haven't been able to take get an appointment scheduled at Purple Label where I took him for his first and second haircuts.  I get my hair cut at Great Clips, and I trust Brandy, who normally does my hair.  So I brought Joshua in for a haircut today.  As he tends to be with his haircuts, he was pretty docile the entire time.  After we took off the apron, though, he perked up and decided he'd done a great job and deserved some applause, which for as well as he did, I couldn't argue.

Lady Gaga loves Joshua

Okay, more like Baby Gaga.  Joshua is saying more words all the time.  Some of his recent additions include outside ("Ow-die!"), poopoo ("Poo-poo!"), and yucky/yucko ("GUCK-OHHH!!!").  Notice the trend of saying every word with enthusiasm.  Anyway, he also now says Clara, but it sounds like "Gaga".  But she really does like him and loves to see what he's doing and sometimes seems to look at him half in amazement and half in hope that someday she'll be able to do whatever cool thing he's doing.  Here they play with Joshua's blocks.  Clara mostly can just eat her block, but she looks up at Joshua and watches as he prepares to do something more advanced than leave saliva on them.

Six Months

Yesterday Clara turned six months old. She is learning lots of new things. She has recently starting scooching with direction (to get something she wants), sort of like an army crawl. She is very close to crawling. She gets in the crawling position frequently and rocks back and forth, but then she isn't sure how to go. This actually really frustrates her and she'll sit there, in the crawling position, crying. I think we'll all be glad when she figures it out. She also can sit with assistance and is close to being able to get in the sitting position on her own. She does not think sitting is awesome, so this is something that we have to encourage by giving her a reason to sit, like a toy within reach. We haven't done a ton of solids yet. She so far can only do purees and is marginally okay with sweet potatoes, applesauce, and bananas, but not really thrilled with them. I have been trying to up the amount we are feeding her so she can get more used to them since I think it's just something that takes repeated exposure for kids to like. Now that she's sitting stably, we might also try offering her more types of food too.