When in Rome, if I were actually in Rome

Those of you who knew my parents finally decided to go to Italy for our after-Christmas trip were probably expecting this last post of 2007 to tell you all about my trans-Atlantic transit. Instead - surprise! - I'm hiding out at the Hudson in Manhattan with my parents.

It's a long story, people: first, we delayed leaving a day because we were all sick. Then, my Daddy's passport went mysteriously missing; after hours and hours and hours of searching (and missing the last possible flight of that day), my parents found it in the bookcase, between travel guides for Egypt and Chile. I wonder how it got there; maybe the mystery is related to the case of the missing "Happy Feet" rental DVD that turned up in the bookcase between the Scrabble Dictionary and the Sign Language Dictionary last week.

In a separate and completely unrelated note, I've recently developed an interest in helping. I like to put my toys in the big silver trash can in the kitchen, the one with the fascinating foot pedal, and I pitch in and take the silverware out of the dishwasher and set it on the floor for my parents to finish putting up, and after I finish reading I enjoy putting my books - and anything that remotely resembles a book - back in the bookcase. My altruism knows no bounds.

So, as I was saying, we had a couple of hiccups in taking off, and then when we were all ready to leave, there were no seats left on any flights to the greater New York area, because of all the flight cancellations due to weather earlier in the week, so we couldn't make the Saturday night flight to Rome or Milan, either, and my Daddy's airline doesn't fly to Rome on Sundays. But my parents felt that overall household morale was sinking, the longer we waited to leave, so we went ahead and took the very last flight to Newark last night, the only one with any seats, even though it was too late to connect anywhere else, and we're starting our vacation now.

Despite nothing about this trip going according to plan so far, we are having a splendid time together. First, at the Cleveland airport, the electric cart driver offered to take me and Mommy for a ride, and I have never been so excited in my whole entire life. Apparently, I rode in an electric cart one time when I was a baby and Mommy and I flew to see Nonna, but I can't remember it, and at any rate I was too young to appreciate the thrill. I squealed so loudly, the entire way down the concourse, that my Daddy heard me from five gates away. Then, everyone on the plane was so nice that I said "hi" and "bye" to someone in every single row as we went down the aisle, and I shook a few hands, too. Also, my Daddy's cousin Todd was on our plane, so we got to catch up with him when we landed in Newark.

Another cool thing last night was that I got to sleep with my parents! Again, I am told I did it often when I was little, but whatever - I haven't done it in months and it was so exciting. My Mommy said it was like going to bed with a puppy; maybe it was because I was wearing my puppy pajamas - I don't know. Anyway, Mommy had to go nuts on a shuttle driver and make a bunch of people that had jumped in the shuttle in front of us move in order to get us there, but we had a swell night together.

This morning, the fun just kept coming. First, I got to eat a DONUT, IN BED, while I watched THOMAS on TV, and then I got to ride TWO trains!!! Does it get any better than that? When we got to New York and dropped our bags at the hotel, we went out and did a bunch of fun stuff, like play on the swings at the Hell's Kitchen playground, and eat sweet yam fries at Zen Palate, and climb all over the brand-new playscape at Heckscher Playground, and eat a couple of donut holes while dancing in my stroller to the music of the people's boom box on the next bench in Columbus Circle, and then chill in the Hudson lobby with a nice cold cup of milk. After all that fun, I enthusiastically explored our hotel room and then settled in for a two-hour nap before heading back out for a cheese and bean quesadilla at Lime Jungle and a sprinkle cookie at the EuroPan outpost around the corner from our hotel.

I'm just about to drop off to sleep now, but when I wake up I'm going shoe shopping and then having lunch at our family's favorite place in the whole city, Red Bamboo, before I go back to the airport and finally GO TO ITALY as planned, just four days late. I leave you with a few photo highlights of my day:

Surveying the scene at the Hudson

Swinger

Catch me if you can!

I finished this apple juice you left on the table; let's open another one!

Milestone: Tonight I sat at an adult-height table on an adult-height banquette,
without use of highchair or booster seat, and ate my dinner like the big boy I am.


Happy New Year!