Jillian Lauren

We’re back from New York with countless memories to treasure, twelve toy subway trains with matching t-shirts (yup- there’s subway merch nowadays. what do they think they are, a band?) and pneumonia. I’m not kidding about the pneumonia. I’m currently lying here waiting for the Z-pak to kick in and planning a mac-n-cheese, TV marathon, bad mom evening. So much for foreswearing antibiotics. And dairy. Oh yeah- and TV.

We miss New York already. We were enjoying our fantasy Brooklyn family lifestyle. I feel proud of how urbane T became in such a short time. Now, when he plays with his trains he says, “This is Bergen Street, transfer to the A, C and E trains.”

And even though living in NY for a couple of months was hard, I think it was nice for Scott and me to shake things up a bit. I realize this is going to make me sound like the world’s lamest person (I swear, I wasn’t always like this- I wrote a memoir about it) but I enjoyed the fact that we found ourselves doing things like going grocery shopping together. I brought him along as muscle- because we had to actually carry the groceries ten blocks home and not just pile them into the mom mobile- but then I found myself conversing with him along the way. And you know what? He’s pretty funny. It’s not like we were living the glamorous life in NY or anything. We were mostly just working our asses off and trying to get by. But it was fun to discover a new place- to find the little pockets where we fit in. We came back exhausted but still somehow energized. A little adventure does us good as a family.

But don’t get carried away- musing about all this adventure and romance isn’t inspiring me to cook him dinner or anything. It’s fish sticks all around tonight. I have pneumonia. Probably from all that wandering through the charming brownstones in the cold.

Overall, I’m relieved and glad to be home. And so is T. Even though he’s still talking about a few of his friends from the park…