Guess We Can't Spell Words Out That We Don't Want Her to Hear Anymore

Since I don't want to leave a bit of a bummer post up top for too long, here's some exciting news: Fiona picked the middle of our move to learn to read.

On the Friday before we left New York, with our house covered in boxes, Fiona pulled out a few books she wanted to read with her mother. Andrea read her the first one, and Fiona "read" the second one (it was a book she had memorized and she didn't look at the words). When Andrea made a gentle comment after Fiona said she had read it, Fiona decided to prove her mother wrong (always a good motivator).

She proceeded to read the first three pages of Good Night, Little Bear, a book which was actually the subject of an old post here. It's really a book that's meant to be read by the parent to the child--pages with paragraphs full of text and words like "night" and "across." Kids are supposed to read Dr. Seuss type books first--books where the rhythm and rhyme help them find their way--but Fiona struggled through three pages until she decided she'd had enough.

The big step was recognizing how to sound out words. We've worked with her on that before, but things finally clicked in the past two weeks, and while she still has trouble with vowels (she'll sound out the word "has" as "his", for example) she's really gotten the hang of it. She can read most two and three letter words she comes across and is clearly recognizing words like "the" without having to sound them out.

A few nights ago on our way to a restaurant I made a crack about how our dinner was going to be at the "Super Store", which was the name of one of a rundown establishment along the side of the road where we were stopped at a red light. There were a bunch of other stores in the vicinity as well, but Fiona instantly replied that there was only one other car parked at that store--which means she was able to figure out exactly which store I was talking about by looking at the words on the signs.

Oh, and in an irony my family will particularly appreciate, Fiona really enjoys reading The Pop-Up Mice of Mr. Brice. The second page has 26 doors, one for each mouse from A to Z, and Fiona enjoys figuring out all the short sentences like "Ann is in" and "Waldo went." Much like her aunt did when she was four-and-a-half and had just moved to a new house, as I recall.

Adjustments

A little over a week since we got to Tampa (though only about 3 days since we got our furniture). How are things going? Eh.

The good:

Fiona has moved to a twin bed with no guardrails (we left the toddler bed in a heap in NYC) and has yet to fall out (I just jinxed this evening, I'm sure). She's got a big wheel she can ride around our porch or out on the sidewalk when we're around. She loves going over to see her Tia, Tio and AJ; Tia even helped her pick out butterflies to decorate her room. She has her own bathroom and gets very upset with me when she catches me using it (I try to explain that it's a lot closer to my office than walking all the way through the house to the master bedroom, but Fiona's not buying).

The bad:

Fiona's always been so easy to adjust to things that we've been caught off guard by just how hard the move has been on her. For the first few nights in the house she woke up crying a few times because she missed her old home and wanted to go back to New York. Once the furniture arrived (and her room didn't look quite so barren) she started doing a lot better around the house, but she's not wild about the day camp we've put her in.

It's been a tough position--we had to get down here when we did because of Andrea's job, but we have a month to go before Fiona's preschool starts. So we found a series of day camps going on at one of the Tampa museums. Unfortunately, camp isn't really the same as preschool -- the programs change every week, which means she isn't getting to bond with a teacher, and there isn't the same type of free play that she was getting at her old school. Mainly, I think it's the unavoidable problem with moving with a child over the summer--during that first summer in a new home, the kid isn't going to have friends yet, which makes the waiting for the school year tough to bear.

Anyway, we're trying to walk that impossible-to-figure-out supportive line, letting her know that it's okay to miss New York, and to be anxious about meeting new kids, but that there's a lot to look forward to here and that we aren't going to be going back to the old house. Easy to say, right? Fiona will be fine (she really is resilient), but I'm sure she's not going to look back on July 2008 as her favorite month of all time.

Vagabond Shoes

There's a mediocre movie Wayne Wang and Paul Auster made as a quickie sequel to Smoke in the mid-nineties called Blue in the Face. It was one of those projects where the filmmakers called up a bunch of famous friends and asked them to improv for a few days and then released the resulting mess to unsuspecting audiences.

Anyway, throughout the movie, there are snippets of Lou Reed either as himself or a character (it's hard to say) smoking and talking about the city and at one point he says:

I don't know anyone in New York who doesn't say 'I'm leaving'. I've been thinking of leaving New York for... uh... thirty-five years now.

I always liked that. If even Lou Reed (and who's more New York than Lou Reed?) can cop to a love/hate relationship with the city that validates the rest of us.

We're leaving. And saying all the things you say at times like this, and even meaning most of them:

• It's the right time.
• Fiona will be in school soon, and while you can get a decent education in New York, you're either going to have to be ridiculously wealthy (which we're not), or possessed of limitless energy (which we're also not) in order to navigate the public school system to make sure your kid winds up in the better schools.
• The cost of living is absurd.
• Fiona could use a back yard.
  
• With Fiona being so young we don't get to go out often enough to take advantage of the amazing culture that's going on a few minutes away.

All of the above are true, and combined with job opportunities that have come up we'd be lunatics to stay. And yet.


I was born in New York and moved away when I was basically Fiona's age. My mother talks about crying when it was time to leave New York, and growing up I thought that was silly, as young boys do when they ponder attaching emotion to... much of anything, but especially a place that had dirty sidewalks and was too hard to drive.

Then I grew up, moved to New York, moved away, moved back. And there are things I'll never understand about the city and still drive me crazy. Why people will double park in front of an empty spot, blocking the street rather than spend 10 seconds pulling to the curb. Why people love sidewalk cafes and leisurely bike rides (New York is a beautiful city from a distance -- that skyline! -- but up close it ain't Paris or Italy)

But now I'm moving away again, and I have a list of all the things I'm going to desperately miss about the only city Fiona's ever called home:

• Living in a pedestrian city where everybody uses public transit. In New York the bus isn't just for the poor, and when I used to commute into the city I was polishing off 3-4 books a month just reading on the subway. All that bumping into each other on a daily basis will drive you nuts, but it's good for democracy (yes, I'm serious about that).
  
  When you live in a pedestrian city you never have to compare how much you've had to drink against what time you need to drive. You stay in touch with all the changes in your neighborhood. You make random discoveries when you turn down a side street. These things are possible in driving cities (well, not the drinking without fear part), but they're harder.
  
  
• Parallel Parking. In direct contradiction to my first point, but important if you do have a car. I remember driving with my father-in-law, coasting up the street, slamming on the brakes, pulling quickly into a spot that left a few inches to the curb and on either side of the bumpers, and my father-in-law letting out a "wow" while I hadn't even thought I was doing anything unusual. This is a skill that's going to go to waste in most parts of the country.
  
  
• The Natural History Museum. I've written about this before. Pretty much the coolest place on the planet.
  
  
• Pizza, bagels, pastrami on rye. I mean, of course. There are a few other cities that do the first as well (or even better). No other American city does the latter two anywhere near as well. When I travel on business and the breakfast spread at a conference has a plate of "bagels," I steer clear.
  
  
• The Astoria Park Playground. A few weeks ago on the first really hot weekend of the year, I watched Fiona in her swimming suit running through the sprinklers (they turn those on to spray the kids in the playground) at the same time as about 30 other kids. Back yards have their upside, but that was an image that felt very New York to me.
  
  
• Yankee Stadium. This place was more fun when the bleachers still served beer and were $6 (or maybe it was just more fun to be 23 and grabbing a cheap seat). I've even come to terms with the idea that they could use a new park (not necessarily the tax burden on the city, but 55,000 people now show up every night and the park just isn't built for moving that many people in and out on a daily basis). Still, there are only a few ballparks in the country where you can count on such a large portion of the crowd really knowing what's going on, not just within the game, but with a sense of history. And when something exciting happens, the place shakes.
  
  
• Fatty's. There will be other restaurants, but that was our neighborhood place, and Fiona loved it there. We're still planning to have our last dinner before the move there.
  
  
• The Weather. No, really. There are many people I know, including several members of my own family, who will disagree with me, and on days where it's 15 degrees and windy or 98 and humid I might not be so enthusiastic, but: I really like being somewhere where the temperatures run across a broad range. At the very least it forces you to rotate your wardrobe regularly, and it also gives structure to the year.
  
  
• The Arrogance and Kindness. There's a joy in feeling like a "real New Yorker" that you get when you know the exact time to leave and shortcut to take that will get you to BAM right at the point where parking becomes free, or being able to navigate the subway without a second thought. We'll come back a lot (we still have family here, for one thing), but there's a level of knowledge that's going to atrophy, and in a few years we won't be able to pass for local.
  
  I've always maintained that New Yorkers generally get a bad rap for rudeness. We move fast here -- we have to -- but all a lost pedestrian or subway rider has to do is ask and five or six locals will descend to offer assistance. We all remember what it was like to arrive and spend the first few months wandering around without a clue.
  

Well. Our life will almost certainly get easier after the move (and the movers show up on Monday morning, so that's not long now), and there is a great deal to look forward to as we settle in Tampa. But that will be for later posts.

We moved here just before Y2K and have since dealt with 9/11, the 2003 blackout, and a transit strike, none of which I'd want to relive. But I'm going to miss the city terribly, and there's a part of me that hopes to be back again someday--one of those fools who keeps moving back and away, back and away--and that Fiona retains enough affection for the place to spend some years here in her twenties (or whenever) herself. That there's no goodbye, maybe another try at becoming king of the hill, top of the heap...

If I haven't lost you already, with this way-too-lengthy post that's only partially about Fiona, there's an short album of New York shots (mainly Fiona-in-New-York shots, since she tends to be our favorite photographic subject) here.

First Ballgame

I think after the major milestones like first words and first steps what I was most looking forward to as a parent was taking Fiona to her first baseball game. Despite her vast experience playing baseball, I still wanted to play it cautious -- I knew we'd have to warm up with something minor league (no way was I throwing down Yankee Stadium prices only to have to leave when she got bored in the 3rd inning). On Friday as we were up in the Berkshires looking for a place to find some fireworks, we discovered that the New England Collegiate Baseball League* had a team in Pittsfield. And so off we trekked to watch some amateur baseball at $6 a pop (free for Fiona).


July 4th: Baseball, Mom, Hot Dogs... all we needed was some apple pie to complete the picture.

*The NECBL is an amateur summer league for college players hoping to catch the eye of pro scouts. It's like the more famous Cape Cod league. If you want to see a movie about the Cape Cod League you can watch Summer Catch with Freddie Prinze, jr. If you want to see a movie that's any good, I would recommend not watching Summer Catch with Freddie Prinze, jr.

Fiona was excited all day to see her first baseball game -- she kept saying things like "I can't wait," which were sure to melt her Daddy's heart. We arrived in the bottom of the first (my normal prohibition on missing the first pitch being suspended since a) we were trying to make sure Fiona stayed interested all the way to the end for fireworks* and b) it was amateur ball), grabbed a seat down the first base line, and instantly got to see some action. The Pittsfield player wearing #14 (we never bought a program, so we just got to know the players by their numbers) rapped out a single. I tried to explain the basics to Fiona:

"#14 is on first base now," I said, pointing to the base. "He wants to get to second and then to third and then home. If he gets home, he scores a run, and the team that scores the most runs wins."

I don't think Fiona processed any of it, but quickly enough #14 moved to 2nd on a walk, took 3rd on a wild pitch (this being amateur ball we saw several of those--plus 4 errors by the home team), and then scored on another single. The crowd cheered and #14 instantly became Fiona's favorite player. The whole rest of the game she kept asking where #14 was.

* Yes, Fiona loves fireworks, ever since she saw them at Disneyland last year. On the drive up to the Berkshires on Thursday the 3rd when she would normally have been sleeping she stayed awake pointing out all the fireworks we could see from the Merritt Parkway. The loud noises don't scare her (usually), not when she can look at all the pretty colors.


Her interest held for the first 5 innings pretty well--very well, given that she's four years old and the first time her aunt went to a ballgame (at the same age) she spent the entire game reading Mr. Brice Has Many Mice (a book Fiona owns as well, although we didn't bring it). Plus she got some of that great food we never serve at home, like hot dogs, fries, soda and Dora ice cream (right). As her interest started to flag, I told her that we were going to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame soon. Fiona knows that song by heart.

"When?" she asked. It was the top of the 6th.

"It's the sixth inning now," I started, then realized she didn't know what innings were. "Remember how each team tries to score before they make three outs?" I asked.

Fiona nodded.

"So each time they do that, that's their part of the inning. So as soon as the black uniform team," (which is how we were distinguishing the visitors from the green uniforms on Pittsfield) "makes three outs, and then Pittsfield does, and then the black uniforms do it again..."

I gave up. It's only when you start trying to explain the rules of baseball to somebody who doesn't know them that you realize the game actually doesn't make any sense whatsoever.


In the middle of the 7th, we stood up... and discovered that the NECBL, or at least Pittsfield, doesn't do a 7th inning stretch. I started wondering if the game was only going to last 7 innings (some amateur leagues cut it short), but no: apparently, they just don't do a 7th inning stretch. Maybe it's one of those "we don't want to pay the royalties" situations on a song you never think about, like how you'll almost never hear characters on TV sing "Happy Birthday" to each other.

In the bottom of the 7th, Fiona finally go to see a home run, which is one of the few plays she knows. She jumped up and down and clapped as if the most exciting thing in the world had happened.

A few minutes later, Pittsfield finished a 5-run rally to improbably take the lead and the stadium erupted. Andrea explained to Fiona that a really exciting play had just happened and now Pittsfield was winning. Fiona nodded and then pointed to the sky behind centerfield where the sun was setting.

"Look, Mommy, pink!" We all have our own priorities.

We couldn't have gotten through the game without the promise of fireworks (especially not a night game, though I hardly would have taken her to a night game if not for fireworks). And we did get a good show after Pittsfield finished the game off for the win. But Fiona enjoyed herself, and I told her when we get to Florida maybe I'll take her to a big game (hey, this year she's got a better chance of seeing quality baseball in Tampa than in NYC). And, who knows, maybe we will get to follow the further adventures of #14 somewhere down the line.

There's a full album of photos from our trip to the park here (linked in the sidebar as well). Oh, and as always, clicking on the photos in this post should bring up larger versions.

Politics

In preschool on Thursday the kids learned about Independence Day and some of the symbols of America. Fiona came home with a picture she'd drawn.

"That's the eagle," she said, pointing to the birdlike object on the left. A stick figure person stood to the right. "What's that man's name, again, Daddy?" she asked.

I hadn't been there; this was the first I'd seen of the picture. "George Washington?" I guessed. "Thomas Jefferson?"

"No, it's President Bush," she responded.

Shudder. I'd always wondered how we were going to deal with talking about politicians with Fiona. Along with 70% of the country we're not so fond of the current administration, but I'd kind of hoped we could just avoid the topic entirely until after January. I'd rather not have my kid showing up at preschool parroting her parents' feelings on Dubya, even if we still live in New York (at least for another week) and those feelings are likely shared by 99% of the other kids' parents at her preschool.

So Andrea and I exchanged a look and left it at that.

The next day (July 4th), Fiona was at it talking about President Bush again. That's all she knows--his name and that he's the head cheese (not her words).

"You know," I told her, "we're going to have a new President soon."

"What's his name?"

"Well, it will either be Barack Obama or John McCain," I told her, figuring we could safely leave Nader out of the picture.

"Maybe his name will be President Bush again," she said. Kids like stability.

"I hope not," I blurted out.

"Why?" she asked.

"He can't run again," I explained.

"Is he going to die soon? Is he really old?" Electoral transfers of power don't really factor in a world view heavy on princesses and various royal lineage.

"No, we just choose a new president every four years." The way Fiona remembers things I'll probably get raked over the coals in 2012 for not mentioning the whole reelection thing, but only as much as a four-year old can handle, right?

"So who's going to be the new president?" she asked.

"Barack Obama or John McCain," I repeated. Then, figuring I could throw in a minor party candidate, if only to keep myself amused: "or maybe Bob Barr."

"Babar!" she said. "He's a silly elephant."

And so I managed to dodge politics for another day.

All I Ask Is That My Labors Be Acknowledged

Fiona sits in front of her xylophone.

"Daddy, will you teach me to play Winnie-the-Pooh on the xylophone?" she asks. Yesterday I "taught" her how to play Doe, a Deer by playing three notes at a time and then having her repeat them.

I've been trying to make my way through a New Yorker article for the better part of the weekend but distractions keep popping up. "Let me get to the end of this page and we'll play something, okay?"

Fiona sighs heavily.

"I'm trying to read right now, Fiona."

Fiona crawls on my lap and cuddles up.

"It's a lot of working raising me, right Daddy?"

I burst out laughing (who wouldn't?) But I do have to ask a question. Nonna, Pop: when Fiona was staying with you for 10 days while we were in Berlin, what did she do that prompted you to tell her that?

Career Plans

Earlier today, Fiona outlined the things she's going to do when she grows up. In the order in which she plans to do them:

1. She's going to be an astronaut and go into outer space
2. Then she's going to become a paleontologist to study dinosaur bones
3. Then she's going to become an animal doctor
4. And after she's done the first three things, she's going to become a waiter

It's an unusual career path to say the least. Oh, and on #4, she's very adamant that she doesn't want to cook meals for people, she just wants to bring them their food.

Depending on where she works maybe we can get a good table when we go out sometime in 2040.

Urban Child

It's Fiona's first full day home (more on all that soon, hopefully) and Andrea was all set to make some pasta for her. But Fiona had other ideas:

Fiona: I want that thing with the rice.
Mommy: What thing with the rice?
Fiona: With the dark paper in a circle.
Mommy: (after a pause) You mean sushi?
Fiona: Yeah, I want that.

What 4 1/2 year old asks for sushi for dinner?

(OK, two quick qualifiers here: 1) she's actually still not yet 40 lbs., which means she can't have fish; 2) because of #1, when she talks about "sushi", she's actually talking about California rolls or other rolls with rice and veggies, plus a Japanese appetizer or two. Still, I'm pretty sure I never asked for sushi at her age.)