spring/summer (?) is here

Wow, I had totally forgotten what 80 degrees feels like. And the sun. Today was a bit like when I step off the plane in California. Your skin almost feels seared because you're not used to it.

But it was a beautiful day that we got to enjoy with friends. And naturally we took advantage of the excuse to have some ice cream.

Our friends:


I'm definitely getting rounder (in more than one place):


We've been cooking a lot lately. Today we made carrot soup with onion relish and a Cobb salad. Last week it was steamed cod Asian style, salad w/ miso dressing and edamame:


I think yesterday was almost more to my liking...it felt like spring.

Spring comes to the Columbia campus:


I wore a dress. My sister and I had a prix-fixe lunch at a fancy restaurant called Perry Street by the water. The food was good...would go there again.

My beautiful sister at the restaurant:


A couple pics from Easter, which was much, much cooler and more windy:


E meeting our friends' new son for the first time...he was a big boy:


But his dad (best man at our wedding) is a big guy, too:


This week was a little unusual school-wise. Tuesday was Art Day for the Upper School. The director of MOMA came to talk to us and then we split up into many groups. My group went to the New York Historical Society and the Bard Graduate Center (furniture/objects). At NYHS I would have liked to have had the opportunity to see the current exhibits more (they did a "how do you look at art" exercise with the permanent collection). The seniors had a retreat on Friday...so no class for me either!

I've started to go into baby furniture/gear research mode. I went to a local baby store this week to check out a few stroller that I've been looking at on-line. I couldn't believe how heavy and bulky they were. And of course, the ones that are light aren't as good at managing bumpy sidewalks. New Yorkers have huge strollers...they must only take cabs and not the subway/bus. Or they must have multiple strollers. One line that did catch my eye was one called Inglesina...I like how easy they are to fold and how they stand up by themselves when folded.

At my last doctor's visit she recommended that we start looking into/signing up for baby prep classes. So I signed us up for the one associated with the hospital so we're good to go for ten hours of baby prep in July/August and a free seminar in anesthesiology options. Apparently the baby care and breastfeeding classes need to be added later.

Interesting demographic data/excerpts on toddlers in Manhattan and their families (if I did ever go back to school, I think I'd study demography!):

"Since 2000, according to census figures released last year, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan mushroomed by more than 32 percent. And though their ranks have been growing for several years, a new analysis for The New York Times makes clear for the first time who has been driving that growth: wealthy white families...Children under 5 now account for more than 1 in 20 Manhattan residents... Whites now account for about 35 percent of the youngest children in Manhattan, compared with about 24 percent for the city as a whole.

The analysis shows that Manhattan’s 35,000 or so white non-Hispanic toddlers are being raised by parents whose median income was $284,208 a year in 2005, which means they are growing up in wealthier households than similar youngsters in any other large county in the country.

In comparison, the median income of other Manhattan households with toddlers was $66,213 for Asians, $31,171 for blacks and $25,467 for Hispanic families.

What those findings imply, demographers say, is not only that the socioeconomic gap between Manhattan and the other boroughs is widening, but also that the population of Manhattan, in some ways, is beginning to look more like the suburbs — or what they used to look like — than like the rest of the city."