The Vulcan Mind Melt on Arthur Avenue

I am no longer a crap mother. Thank you for your kind words and declarations to the contrary. You gave me a much-needed boost.

I am, however, a crap blogger because when I was spending all that quality time with my kids, I wasn't blogging or even thinking about blogging. I didn't even do the twitter, which is like my new secret obsession. Obviously, I must love the little rugrats.

I know this because I was in a Vulcan mind melt with my children, where we shared a single brain and frolicked with abandon in meadows inhabited by butterflies and bunnies, and I was completely focused on their every need. If they wanted juice, I knew it three seconds before they could open their mouths to scream it at me. I confounded them with my attentiveness.


And this was all good until this morning when Lucy begged me to go back to the Internet and my writing and leave her the hell alone. Apparently, they missed barking out orders until I looked up bleary-eyed from my laptop and paid attention to them.

The period of rainbows and unicorns is officially over.



But we had a blast - one of the places we went this weekend was up to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. If you live in NYC, the surrounding area or are visiting, you'll want to take a little day trip there.

I describe it this way: A gigantic playground with a clean and serviceable restroom, surrounded by Italy with some of the best food, markets and specialty produce I've seen. And it's a 15 minute drive from our house - far enough away to make it feel like a treat, close enough to prevent episodes of high-pitched screaming in the car seat torture device invented by members of the Taliban.

We ate chocolate cannoli on the playground and bought freshy-baked bread.


And Lucy and Edie picked out their seeds to plant vegetables and zinnias this spring.


And we ate pizza at Zero Otto Nove and the kids learned to dip their bread in olive oil and we tried different meats and brought home sopressata, home-made mozarella and proscuitto.


And, much to our dismay, we realized that when left to her own devices, Lucy dresses like a sister wife in a polygamist cult.


David suggested we remove any clothes in her closet that she could use to look like a Mennonite.

And we played on the playground until Mr. Softee came around with his seductive music calling us to the truck like the Pied Piper's children and got ice cream cones and ate them on the drive home.

It was all pretty great.

xxoo YM