Friday, August 24, 2007

Samara Takes Manhattan

Just to throw my life into utter chaos (because I was not already stressed enough), I decided to drive with the baby to Manhattan this week while R was on a business trip. I wanted to see Auntie K and, of course, to let the baby take her first bite of the Big Apple:



My first mistake? I decided to drive. Oh yes, I know the horror tales of driving to Manhattan. I know I should take the train, the bus, an airplane, a donkey cart, anything to avoid the traffic that woes the city on a daily basis. I have taken all the other methods of travel into the city many times and, given what I needed to carry and where we would be staying (with Auntie K), it made no sense to try to get there any other way. May I also just say that I have been to the city at least 50 times over the course of my life and never once have I run into this mythic traffic. Never once. Until yesterday. Oh.My.G-d. It was as if Manhattan decided to put on a show: "Look how difficult we can be to get to." What is normally a 3-hour drive took Samara and me 7.5 hours. Granted we stopped twice to nurse and pee, but it was ludicrous. The final straw came on 95, still 7 exits from Hudson Parkway when I called my father hysterical. We had been at a standstill for 2 hours and Samara needed to nurse. Before getting off in the middle of the South Bronx and pulling my top down, I called my dad. Luckily he was able to walk me through crossing the Triboro Bridge and I was able to get into the city relatively unscathed. The afternoon and evening were quite lovely:

Check out this Duane Reade as it factors heavily into the second part of my trail of mistakes:



Mistake Number Two? Mama needed a margarita after the trip into town. We settled into a cute little Mexican place with not so cute, not so little prices. We ordered two margaritas, some delish eats and a bowl of avocado for the baby. I should have known when she rejected the food that something was amiss, but I dismissed it as part of the long drive we'd had earlier. On the way home, the little one passed out:



Three hours later, she woke with a vengeance, vomiting the contents of her stomach as well as some of what I believe was a meal my grandmother ate. The poor thing spent about an hour repeatedly vomiting, a situation which would have been hilariously fun under normal cirucumstances, but in my friend's studio apartment at 3 a.m. the night before she had an important business thing to do, it was practically a festivity of amusement. Luckily for us, Auntie K was a trooper and made not one, but two 3 a.m. runs to Duane Read to get both Pedialyte and a rectal thermometer (on the advice of our pediatrician). And since no sickness would be complete without a drama mama breakdown, I became convinced she had both EColi and Salmonella and could not sleep a bit the rest of the night.

Three hours later the babe had made a full recovery:



Just in time to drive home. Despite the chaos that is my every move, it was wonderful to see Auntie K for both of us. Now please excuse us. It is nap time:

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm kind of disappointed that we're going to have to wait at least a few years before we can tell Samara the excellent story of her first trip to the Big Apple! all it was missing was a driveby, and that doesn't happen anymore thanks to Giuliani.

Unknown said...

If you guys want to come Atlanta for Samara's first drive by, I'd be happy to host. We can watch off the back porch and I'll make popcorn like last time it happened. Fo' shizzle.

Kristi said...

Oh wow. What a time you had. Poor Samara (and poor you). I hope her next trip to NYC is nothing like her first.