You know that warm, tingly feeling you get when you’re sitting on the couch watching tv in super soft flannel pjs and you’re just starting to get tired? When you yawn and stretch before padding upstairs in fluffy slippers and you slide into bed and slip immediately into a deep sleep? Well, it’s usually not me feeling those feels. It’s usually someone I’m watching on tv as my sleep deprived brain whispers, “that person is about to have the best sleep of their life.”
But things have changed.
Nearly everyone who comes to New York City makes a point of visiting Central Park. It is, quite literally, the heart of Manhattan, and any guide to NYC will direct you to explore this green oasis, which is so full of wonders, it can make you feel like a kid again.
But for those of us with actual children in tow, sometimes you just need the relative sanity of a fenced in playpark, where you can sip a coffee while the youngsters burn off some energy. For us, some of the greatest gems sprinkled throughout Central Park are the 21 different playgrounds—all 100% free, open from dawn to dusk, many of which have been renovated by the Central Park Conservancy over the last few years. As a resident of Manhattan since my children were two and three years-old, I’ve done some serious investigation of at least two-thirds of those parks and have whittled down my favourites to these five Central Park playgrounds.
It’s true. On the surface, I do look very much like your typical crunchy-granola attachment parent. I breastfeed, make my own baby food, buy organic, wear the babies, redirect rather than punish (or try, at least), and even do a little bed sharing. Letting my baby cry it out would be the last thing a mom like me would do.
You might assume I’d be one of those moms who pops up in your Facebook newsfeed, all sanctimommy in my choice of shares, doling out judgment and unsolicited advice—but you’d be wrong. You won’t find me mom-shaming anywhere. My philosophy is ‘we’re all in this together.’ And try as I might, living with my headstrong 3 ½ year old daughter leads to considerably more yelling and empty threats than I ever thought would be in my mommy wheelhouse.
How do you react to stressful situations? I will be the first to admit that my anxiety is clearly linked to my inability to effectively manage my emotions during stress. I am famous for catastrophizing and overreacting. Growing up, I was always known as the one who would freak out all the time. Today, I know that I just needed to develop my emotional intelligence. It doesn’t come naturally and it’s something I will continue to work on throughout my life, but if I can give my children these tools much earlier on in life, I hope that they won’t have to freak out as much as I did.
“Wait for me!” yelled my 4 year old daughter, Dari. My 8 year old son, Phineas and his older buddy had already raced out of our yard. They were half way up the street by the time my daughter got to our backyard gate. She couldn’t reach the latch and burst into tears.
“You can’t go with them, honey,” I told her. “You’re too young.”
Before his second birthday, my son said his first three syllable word thanks to his brand new hearing aids: Banana. Biologically, his corrected age made him a year and nine months old. He was so thrilled, he said, “banana,” several more times before piling the whole thing into his mouth.
My father doesn’t like to sit still. He’s always outside: tinkering with his tractor, using a chainsaw, or flying in his small airplane. He got his pilot’s license the same year I was born and I grew up riding alongside him in his single engine airplane, peering out the window, yelling at the top of our lungs to communicate with each other.
Over the years, his love for flight hasn’t changed, but now I have to yell to speak to him even when we’re on the ground. The constant exposure to the deafening sound of the engine took its toll and, at 60 years old, he was forced to admit he needed hearing aids.
Motherhood is a lot of things—some beautiful, some awful, and some really, really gross. So many bodily fluids that need tending to, so many smells…who knew that peeing on that little stick would be practice for all the years we’d be elbow deep in the sludge of motherhood? But moms are soldiers—we handle the grit and grim with aplomb. So let’s own it, shall we? Let’s pull back the curtain on the gross things we all do and nod our heads in solidarity.
My parents were great—no complaints at all, but as a kid I remember that there were certain house rules that made me repeatedly think: I will never do that to my kids. I will certainly be parenting differently than my parents.
Of course, looking back, my parents weren’t that bad and for the most part, they were pretty logical.
One day you’re sharing feeding tips with another new mom and a year later you suddenly realize that you’re actually in a beautiful and intense friendship. Both you and your kids have so much in common, so the time you spend together is never strained—an afternoon together leaves you both feeling light with mutual understanding, your necks aching from all the nodding. And then one of you has another baby. And one of you doesn’t.