Spring Has Sprung in Manhattan

  "April is the cruelest month," wrote T. S. Elliot, but for the Gage family, the current month of April, which we spent in New York, has been the best ever, as we greeted a new little grandson and watched the city burst into bloom after a winter of record snow.

On April 2, Nicolas José Baltodano Gage was born--our second grandchild and Amalia's little brother.  And in Central Park, the snow drops were blossoming among the snow drifts.

 On April 5 Baby Baltodano headed for home strapped to his Papi's chest, because home was only two blocks from the hospital.

On April 9, Amalia colored eggs for Greek Easter (on April 12 this year) while Tia Marina, visiting from San Francisco, talked on the phone.  Amalia made the chick and rabbit place cards for the Easter table as well...

...and Nicolas celebrated being one week old.

On April 12, there was an egg hunt at home, followed by church at Holy Trinity Cathedral...

...Nicolas chatted with Amalia from his basket...

...and Uncle Bob's egg beat all challengers at the egg cracking game.

The next day Nicolas enjoyed his first outing-- to Central Park near the boat pond-- but he's hidden under Eleni's breastfeeding shawl...

...while Amalia examined the fountain in her favorite playground, which will squirt water on hot summer days.

On April 18, the first really warm day, people gathered outside their favorite coffee shop in the sun  on Lexington Avenue next to masses of flowers...

...And two statues of the Virgin Mary had their own offerings of fresh flowers.

Tulips were blooming everywhere.

On April 18, because the baby's umbilical cord stub had come off, the family gathered on the balcony to plant it for strength and health in the dirt of one of the trees--a custom in Papi Emilio's native Nicaragua.

Amalia did the digging.

On Monday the 20th,  April showers began, but Amalia was ready, with her rain coat, rain boots and umbrella, for Papou to take her to preschool.

On our last day before returning to Massachusetts, Eleni took us to lunch at a restaurant on 81st Street called Antonucci's, and on the way, she snapped our picture in front of this great grafitti work of art by Nick Walker, an artist from Bristol, England  (not Banksy, who is from the same city.)  We really do love New York in the Spring, especially in April!

Baby Countdown Ends on April 2.

On April 2, at 8:43 a.m., at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, Nicolas José Baltodano was born right on schedule--the happy climax to the Manhattan baby watch.  He weighed 7 lbs 7 oz.  All of us are ecstatic but none of us have had much sleep since then.  I'm too tired to be articulate,  but I wanted to share some photos of the welcome accorded our second grandchild by his family and fans.

You may have seen this photo already on Facebook--Amalia's awed and delighted expression when she got to hold her little brother for the first time.  She counts his little toes every day and woke up at 6:30 this morning insisting that I read her a book called  "You're a Big Sister" before I got up or had my first cup of coffee.  This photo and the next show Amalia on April 3, as she held her little brother for the first time.

On April 2, the day of his birth, we opened a bottle of  champagne that Papou Nick had brought for the occasion.  After all, this was his grandson and namesake!

 

Here is a sweet portrait of  Mommy and Big Sister and Little Brother, taken on April 3, the second day of Nicholas'  life.

Somebody else took this photo of me holding our new grandchild.

And here is the proud Papi, Emilio, revisiting the "football hold" that he used so successfully when Amalia was a newborn.  It works wonders with cranky babies.

 We're hoping that Baby Nicolas and  his mommy will come home from the hospital tomorrow, April 5, and will have a week to convalesce before much of the family descends on Manhattan to see its newest member and to celebrate Orthodox Easter on April 12.

(Did I mention that on Wednesday, April 1, while picking up Amalia from the Greek Cathedral preschool, Eleni decided to slip into the church to light a candle and found herself locked in and contemplating the possibility of going into labor right there.  Luckily, someone went hunting for her and got her out, and Baby Nicolas was not saddled with an April Fools Day birthday!)

Countdown to a Baby in NYC

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I’ve been in Manhattan since March 11, hanging out with granddaughter Amalia, age 3, as she and her parents prepare for the arrival of a new baby in their family, expected around April 2.

Even before I arrived, Amalia was helping her Papi assemble new furniture from Ikea like these toy shelves,

and using her doll for a test run on this gadget, which will rock the new baby and serenade it with a variety of sounds, including falling water and birdsong.

A high point of Amalia’s life so far was Friday, March 13, when her Mommy was the Mystery Reader at her pre-school, where they’ve been studying children’s authors like Dr. Seuss.   

Parents have been serving as surprise Mystery Readers, presenting their child’s favorite book to the class.  Amalia’s Mommy read “Llama, Llama, Mad at Mama” by Anna Dewdney, while Amalia sat beside her, looking very proud.

Saturday, March 14, Amalia and Yiayia Joanie and Mommy went to the Museum of Natural History where they met up with the family of Amalia’s friends Siya and Milind.

The kids got close up and personal with some of the Museum’s famous critters, including the high-hanging whale, dinosaurs, tigers and polar bears. 

And a whale battling a giant squid.

The next day Amalia practiced pushing the umbrella stroller with her monkey Boots standing in for a baby.

On March 18, Eleni’s colleagues at Martha Stewart Weddings threw her a surprise baby shower with a Greek theme and all the fabulous Martha Stewart touches in food and flowers. 

At the last minute Amalia and Yiayia Joanie and Papi Emilio learned they were invited too.

waiting for Eleni to walk in and be surprised

On March 20, after dropping Amalia at preschool, (where every Friday she gets pizza for lunch and a dance party for exercise) Mommy Eleni and Yiayia Joanie had a late breakfast at Francois Payard Patisserie and learned it was Free Macaron day.

On Saturday, March 21, Amalia celebrated with pancakes at the Lexington Avenue Candy Shop,

story time at Barnes and Noble on 86^th Street

and stomping in the snow which had blanketed the city the night before.

The next day, Sunday, the snow was nearly gone

and Amalia and family had an outdoor lunch at the Pain Quotidien in Central Park. Beside melting snow drifts, great swathes of snow drops bloomed in Central Park.

Before lunch they visited the Macy’s Flower Show, where Amalia stood in line for more than an hour with hundreds of other preschoolers to get her photo taken with Peppa Pig. 

On Friday, March 27, Amalia helped Mommy buy a Moses basket for the baby at Giggle. 

On Monday, March 30, she went to Lenox Hill Hospital where Mommy got the last sonogram of the baby before the expected birth-day of April 2.

And every night, Amalia asks the same question: “Mommy, when will the baby be ready to come out of your tummy?” 

“Soon,” her mommy says.  “Maybe tomorrow.”

Back in South Beach--Still the Strangest Place on Earth

I'm re-posting below something I wrote about South Beach, Miami, and especially Lincoln Road, back in September of 2011 when I spent a month here while awaiting the birth of first grandchild Amalia.   Now I've been back in her parents' wonderful art- deco apartment for some three weeks, this time with 3 1/2 year old Amalia along for part of it, and I've found changes--some for the better, some not.  I'll report on the changes in my next post.  But still, every day, walking up and down Lincoln Road, the pedestrian street full of restaurants, theaters and art galleries at the heart of South Beach , I'm convinced it's one of the most fascinating and, well, strangest, streets in the world. 

  South Beach—We’re Not in Kansas any More

I’ve now been living in South Beach, Miami, for over a month and I think it’s time to go home.  The other day I was walking on Lincoln Road behind a six-foot-tall curvaceous female wearing only a tiny black string bikini and very tall spike heels, and I took a good second look to decide whether she was a man or a woman. 

This is not such a strange reaction on my part, since nearby Ocean Drive swarms with gay bars and drag brunches in its elegant Art Deco hotels.   Absolutely no extreme or peculiar dress gets a second look on Lincoln Road, while back home in Worcester, MA, the bikini-wearing vision in front of me might get arrested, if she was walking on Main Street.

Lincoln Road, the heart of South Beach, was re-designed around 1960, by Miami Beach architect Morris Lapidus.  His design for Lincoln Road, with exotic gardens, bubbling fountains, raised “grassy knolls” for kids to play on and an amphitheater, reflected the Miami Modern Architecture, or "MiMo", style. The road was closed to traffic and became one of the nation's first pedestrian malls—stretching for eight blocks from Alton Road to Washington Avenue.

I’ve been here since Aug. 12,  renting an apartment in the same Art-deco building where daughter Eleni, her husband Emilio and my first grandchild, two-week-old Amalía, live.  (For an account of Eleni’s trials, tribulations and triumphs mastering the art of breast feeding, check out her blog post, “Say Yes to the Breast.”)

Every morning I set out to the nearest Starbucks, half a block away, past the optimistically waiting pigeons, to get my coffee and newspaper and then I walk up and down Lincoln Road, marveling at the rare and amazing  species of people, animals, flowers and birds.  This is surely the most exotic, bizarre and just plain weird street I’ve ever seen, and this is coming from someone who lived on Manhattan’s 14^th street in the 1960’s and is familiar with Venice Beach in LA and Haight Ashbury back in the day. Skate-board champs, shirtless and covered with tattoos, somehow avoid running down Hasidic Jews and  bikinied beauties.

Every day you see the regulars—panhandlers and people who earn money as living statues (this one is Ghost Elvis)

or weaving palm fronds into baskets,

juggling or letting  people admire his pet lemur  (or whatever this is.)

There are a plethora of design stores and art galleries.  I loved this piece of art work—a dog excreting a long length of pink fabric—juxtaposed with the nearby Dog-pot.

If you are a seasoned Lincoln Road pedestrian, your accessory of choice is a small dog or a baby in a stroller, and your vehicle is a Segway, or a skateboard, a rented bicycle or a motorized wheel chair.

I think no street anywhere has the caliber of restaurants, food stores and cafes as those found on Lincoln Road. I’m trying to taste every one of the tartes at Paul’s, which is so French that both staff and clientele seem to speak French most of the time. 

I’ve already discovered my favorite flavor of ice cream at Kilwins.  (It’s Kilwin’s Tracks—they throw in bits of all their hand-made candies.)   

The Ice Box, which serves indescribable brunches, makes, according to Oprah, “the best cake in the United States”.  Good thing there’s no scale in this rented apartment.

 

All the restaurants lining Lincoln Road have tables indoors and outside, and most people sit outside, despite the sweltering heat.  Cooling fans and misting machines make it bearable.

Overhead are towering palm trees chock full of parrots and parakeets which squawk non-stop and sometimes come down to be hand-fed morsels 

Orchids  grow parasitically on many trees but the most famous tree on Lincoln Road is this “Orchid Tree” dripping with  blooms that look like orchids but bloom only at night.  Its proper name is Bauhinia Varigata.

Lincoln Road turns into an outdoor market every Sunday, selling every exotic type of fruit or flower or spice or Latin food that you can think of.

An atmosphere of sin hangs heavy over the street, especially at night.  There are party busses with smoked glass windows and advertisements for “No-Tell Hotels”. 

Every time I walk by the  “Vice Lounge” I wonder what goes on inside.  This is what the outside looks like.

 When you have exhausted all the pleasures and vices of Lincoln Road, you can continue to the end, where the Ritz Hotel offers the best Happy Hour food and drink around.  (Every single restaurant and bar has a happy hour every day, sometimes starting at noon.)  Or you can hitch a parachute right on the beach.

No wonder every time I walk down Lincoln Road I feel like Alice falling through the rabbit hole or Dorothy landing in Oz.   But like those two ladies, I’ll have to return home in the end.  Sadly I’m leaving South Beach and my new granddaughter in four days.  Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home”, but I’m here to tell you, home is no place like Lincoln Road.