Grandma, Aunt Carrie, and Taylor Visit

Yay! Our Wisconsin peeps came this weekend for a fast and furious visit to the Big Apple. Because our apartment is too small to host overnight guests, they rented a nearby apartment so they had room to spread out and be comfortable. And the place was very cool! (If you love all things real estate you can check out the pics if you want: http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p909357.) it was a great spot for us to gather in the evenings while Sasha and Taylor mind-melded. Yes, it's true, they got along so well it was actually freaky. They played school, superheroes, and most often, tackle football/wrestling and we intervened maybe twice from Thursday to Sunday. Truly amazing.

On Friday, we went to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/wld/). Very cool science! Most of the exhibits and information were way over the heads of the little ones, but I enjoyed it. And apparently, Sasha loved it, too, since he asked over and over again all weekend to go see the Really! Big! Dinosaurs! We may have to purchase a membership since his age is no deterrent to loving the science museum. Taylor was enthralled by the large North American mammals exhibit, with bears, wolves, coyotes, bison and deer. Did I mention bears? I also wanted to see the blue whale that hangs from the ceiling, but it was closed when we went to see it. Not that it mattered: Sasha was more excited about telling everyone that it was closed and showing us the rope than seeing the whale itself.

 On Saturday, the plan was shopping, with a final stop at FAO Schwartz. Wow. Now I know why it has such an outsized reputation. Because everything about that place is outsized! Totally overwhelming, but in a good way. We found lots of fun things and Carrie bought a huge bag of goodies for all the kids, including lonely Beckett who spent the weekend at home with Daddy, carrying a picture of Taylor around the house, asking, "Tay tay? Tay tay?" And of course every one of us bought an overpriced bag of nostalgia candy from the sweet shop.

The high point for Sasha, however, cannot be overstated. He got to meet a real, live Spiderman and Iron Man. And have his picture taken with them! And give them high-fives! In all the time he has been alive, I have never seen him like that. Like in the cartoons where he has stars in his eyes and a dreamy, this-can't-be-real cloud around his brain. He could not even speak. Seriously. He was napping when we got to the store, so we all anxiously waited for him to wake up so we could see his reaction to meeting real superheroes. We took him to the photo-taking area to meet them and he just stood in awe until it was his turn. Finally, he got to walk up to them and shake hands and pose with them. He did whatever they told him to because I think his brain had shut down due to overstimulation. He even did the "big muscles" pose with the two of them which was SO CUTE. After the photos, he zombie-walked away until Iron Man asked for a high-five goodbye. Then he gave them both high fives and we walked away. Shortly after, he tried on a Captain America mask and shield, then looked over to the superhoeroes, and dreamily told me and Nerdy, "I'm Captain America. I want to show them." We didn't really know what to do about this request, but thankfully Iron Man saw Sasha from across the room and waved at him as if to say, I see you Captain America, fellow Avenger, and you are awesome, too." Fortunately, that was satisfying enough for the Bub. Then we ran into the REAL Captain America downstairs and Sasha waved and shouted, "Hi Captain America! Hi Captain America!" but to no avail because CA was distracted by another mission. The only reason we were able to leave the store without tears is because the superheroes were on lunch break as we left. Phew.  And the huge lollipop helped, I'm sure.

Taylor was a great "cuzi" watching out for Sasha and making sure he received a satisfactory amount of superhero supplies from Aunt Carrie. Of course, the good-naturedness may have been due in part because her lip gloss addiction was well-fed for the entire playing, shopping, train-riding extravaganza. I think she put on one bottle's worth of lip gloss per day. One has to keep up one's glamorous appearance for a trip to the Big Apple! Special kudos to Tay for being a easy travel companion, a good sport about all the New Nork busy-ness and for being a responsible older cuzi.

Since I took almost none of my own, I will post photos whenever I get some from Carrie.