City Living

Hi Friends!  I'm writing you from our tiny kitchen in Brooklyn, or as Tye says, "Book-wyn."  The past week feels like a whirlwind, and packing up the moving truck a week ago seems as if it happened a lifetime ago.  We arrived to NYC Wednesday night and stayed in a hotel so we could move in early Thursday.  

I don't know how much you all know about living in NYC, but one of the many differences between Chicago and NYC is it's dog-friendliness.  In NYC, owners of dogs 25 pounds or less are set.  Anyone with a dog over 30 pounds is limited, and no one owns a dog over 50 pounds because a) you can't live anywhere with a dog over 50 pounds, and b) you can't go anywhere with a dog over 50 pounds.  After many attempts, we finally found a hotel in Brooklyn that allowed dogs and was willing to make an exception to their weight limit policy (thanks to Tyler's hotel status acquired from traveling with his last job).  Can you imagine what the hotel staff were thinking when we walked in with a 100+ pound dog and a toddler?  I'm sure they quickly made certain no one was rooming next to us.

Thursday, movers stuffed boxes into every square inch of our apartment and left us to figure out where everything would eventually belong.  I wish I had a photo of us in that stage, boxes piled high with nowhere to move them, but I was so daunted by the task of unpacking them I didn't think I could bear photographical evidence.  Since then, we've been slowly unpacking boxes and finding nooks and crannies for most of our items.  "Most" because we are certainly donating and selling more items now that we're here, even after reducing our belongings by a significant amount in Chicago.  Salvation Army is celebrating our move.

When we began unpacking, I focused my efforts on Tye's room first, which proved to be a very good idea.  Once we loaded her shelves with her toys and books, she began to happily pass the time by taking inventory.  As she began pulling books off her shelves, she excitedly identified each one.  "Puppy book!  Bunny book!  Daddy book! Duck book!"  Clearly, the familiarity was important to her.  I think it helped her feel at home in our new, still chaotic space.

We took a break from our unpacking yesterday to make a practice run down to Tyler's office in Midtown.  What a needed rest!  Tye was ecstatic to finally ride the trains she's been hearing rumbling below the grates in the sidewalk.  It was a quick, easy trip, just as we had hoped.  

Since Tyler works next to FAO Schwarz, Manhattan's famed toy store, we stopped in with Tye.  She was in awe.  

Every time Tye found something she liked, she gasped as she ran towards it full speed, stopped long enough to barely investigate, and immediately, her eyes were caught by something else. She ran around the store gasping, running, gasping, running, until we found one that kept her attention- a cowgirl puppet.  

As soon as she put it on and figured out how to make the mouth move, she was enchanted.  What a great souvenir to remind us of our first family outing in Manhattan.

Today is Tyler's first day of work, so I'm sitting here as Tye naps surrounded by more boxes, furniture we're trying to sell, and more boxes.  I keep wondering how unpacking can take so much time.  We don't yet have a couch to sit on or chairs for our new tiny kitchen table, so I'm sitting on a stool next to the mobile island.  I haven't been grocery shopping yet and we've almost depleted our stock of snacks, so Tye and I will probably walk to share some lunch when she wakes up.  We'll share photos of our space eventually, but we have a lot of work to go before then!