Long Nights

The Making of a Fairy

One of the best things about Fall is all of the festivals throughout the City.  This was a couple of weeks ago at the Battery Park City block party. We were on the lookout for face painting but arm painting worked out just fine.










{Pink nail polish from her month-old manicure}

Sleep Struggles

{Remnants of a red velvet cupcake}

 

Lyla is going through some sleep issues.  She's not a bad sleeper, but she has been waking up in the middle of the night and just generally giving us a hard time about going to bed.  She is obsessed with sunrise/sunset and I often find myself in a debate with her if it is dark out.  We will be looking out at a black sky and she will emphatically argue that it is still daytime.  "Nooo, it's not dark, it's sunny."  And if she wakes at two in the morning, she will ask Mark "Daddy, is the sun up yet?"  No Lyla, go back to sleep.  If she is lucky enough to make it into our bed in the middle of the night, she  keeps us up for hours as she tosses and turns and then falls into a deep sleep just as Mark has to get up for the day.  This morning, in our bed again, she was talking in her sleep and said "I don't really like broccoli." What the heck was she dreaming about?

Movie Night

Quiksilver Pro

Last week, Long Beach hosted the Quiksilver Pro NY and now I am considering whether to leave my family and follow professional surfers around the world :) Maybe not, but it was such an awesome event and an amazing time to be in Long Beach.  The surfing gods were smiling down on us because the waves were bigger than I have ever seen in Long Beach. When I couldn't be there live I was watching the live webcast from work. I was a surfing junkie for an entire week.

I made my way down to the beach for the finals, where Owen Wright defeated Kelly Slater. My view was kind of like this:


But here are some of the best pictures people posted on Facebook:










That handsome bald man is Kelly Slater, ten time world champion. And he just so happened to say this about Long Beach on Twitter:

See you next year, Kelly?

Trying to wait up for daddy

Summer in iPhone Pics

First Day of Preschool

Lyla started preschool today. Last night, we packed her bag, picked out a dress to wear and talked about how much fun it would be to see her teachers and friends from camp. Today was pretty smooth sailing. Mark and I met Lyla and Dahlia outside of the school before class. She had a huge smile on her face. When we tried to take some photos she kept walking away and saying "I gotta go to school now." We waited in the lobby until they opened the doors. Lyla introduced herself to a little girl named Alex and told Alex that she liked her "pretty dress" and backpack. How cute is that? Bonding over clothes and accessories at the age of two. I love having a girl :). Once in the school, she marched right past us, said hello to Miss Yari and Miss Jessica and slipped right into the classroom.





I got a mixed report card at the end of the day. The teachers said Lyla did great. During dinner tonight, however, we were talking about the day and she said "I cried like this [pretending to cry] 'cause I missed mommy." But she also said she had fun playing with clocks and cookies. It's so much fun to recap her day. We can really converse now. She understands concepts and can respond appropriately to most of my basic questions. We can also reason with her a lot more, which just amazes. Our words now have the ability to change her behavior, rather than just distraction or redirection. Watching her grow never ceases to amaze me.

Just for fun (riding her bike on Saturday):

Can I wear this to school tomorrow?

Proud day...Lyla's 1st time sitting at a bar

Summer Lovin'

These two have been kissing way too much lately.  What is going on?  #keepitinthefamily?

Surviving Irene

We made it through Hurricane Irene just fine. Despite my joking in a previous post, we were very well prepared for the hurricane. We contemplated evacuating (we were just a few blocks away from the evacuation zone), but decided to stay. The neighborhood was prepared for the worst. Before the storm hit, we tried to get outdoors as much as possible in anticipation of being homebound for days. We went out to breakfast and walked around in the rain.


{Mark dressed Lyla...}











Lyla was disappointed that her park was closed.




In our apartment, we hardly felt the hurricane. There were no windows rattling, no whistling winds and no power outages. Our biggest sacrifice was that our favorite take-out restaurants were closed for the entire weekend. Lyla was really great indoors all weekend. She kept herself busy, playing with virtually every two she owns. The inside of our apartment took a bigger beating than our neighborhood. And on the potty training front, there were highs and lows, but overall I think we made progress.






{Yes, she was naked all weekend...part of the potty training}



On Sunday afternoon, we took a walk around the neighborhood. Besides a few small areas of standing water, it looked no different than it did before the storm. Long Beach got a little battered, but my family was safe and didn't sustain any damage to their homes.









Our Hurricane Irene weekend in a nutshell:

10 painted toenails
9 races of Thomas the Train
8 readings of The Animals of Farmer Jones
7 successful trips to the potty
6 movies watched (many while sitting on the potty)
5 pairs of new princess undies
4 magazines read
3 accidents off the potty
2 finger paintings
1 bottle of wine