Stick a Fork in Me

My cousin Deb has arrived from Detroit with her two boys aged 2 and 6 and her husband Jim. My cousin-who immediately following a six hour journey complete with missing luggage and various other obstacles says "let's go to the Empire State Building!!" And when I look at her all slanty eyed thinking ARE YOU CRAZY she says "we are get up and go people."

So today we were all GET UP AND GO PEOPLE and we started out by hitting the American Museum of Natural History. We began in the butterfly conservatory--well, actually, first I had to spend 15 minutes convincing Annie and Jesse to enter the butterfly conservatory: THEY'RE GOING TO LAND ON ME MOMMY-DON'T LET THEM LAND ON ME!! Demonstrating butterfly kiss after butterfly kiss-never mind the Maybelline Great Lash mascara. I was rewarded by the look on Jesse's face as a monarch perched on his index finger; pure wonder and amazement. Annie chose to see each winged creature as an opportunity to make a wish: I WISH THE WHOLE WORLD WAS FULL OF LEOPARDS.

All the better to make coats with my darling.

Then off to the dinosaurs, the Native American indian exhibition Jesse insisted on seeing ( I think because there are ample opportunities to snicker and say -NAKED BUTT) lunch at a crowded cafe, more dinosuars, amphibeans, an attempt to get into the GOLD exhibition, some lame movie narrated by Meryl Streep and, of course, THE GIFT SHOP.

Following THE GIFT SHOP we chose the next obvious stop: TOYS R US. which, if nothing else, is a great place to visit if your child is constipated-which Annie often is.

Annie and Jesse both claimed that they were about to throw up in the cab ride there--so we got out in the rain and limped to the Toys R Us.

The boys hung by the lego, Annie and I headed for Barbie, Disney Princesses, and Polly Pocket-but not Bratz, because they "don't look like nice girls." And later in the bathroom (which, like I said, was inevitable) she said to me: "Mommy- I am not going to get a toy for myself. I am going to get a toy for you because you never get toys."

MY SWEET SELFLESS GIRL.

"And I am going to get you an Ariel purse Mommy because I know it is what you really really really want and also that if you did not want to use it sometimes you would let ME use it-right Mommy?"

We left my cousin and her brood soon after-intent on exploring Times Square and perhaps jetting over to 30 Rock. Tomorrow we will hit Chelsea Piers, Canal Street, and perhaps some sort of boat ride around Manhattan. I'm hoping at some point Annie will let me borrow back the Ariel purse.