Tag: #CityLiving

  • Walking NYC Again

    My daughter’s birthday is coming up, and the wife and I have been taking turns shopping for the event. The wife was able to get all of her purchases taken care of in, and around the neighborhood. My big errand for the birthday shopping was to go get some books. Luckily, there is a great children’s bookstore in Manhattan, Books of Wonder, and I headed out for the Upper West Side location.

    Now, I could have taken some sort of mass transit there, but I am still a little hesitant, and also, I could use the exercise of a good walk. So on Saturday, I head out on foot. It was a nice winter day for a walk; not too cold, but cold enough to be bundled up.

    For the past ten months, I have rarely gone any further north than 145th Street, a never below 93rd Street, so to head down into the 80’s was like going to a new foreign land. The thing I noticed first was the amount of people, who were younger than me, all crammed around tables on the sidewalks for brunch. I know that the restaurants need the business, but the lack of masks, and close proximity didn’t seem very safe or wise. I don’t know what the answer is here, but there just needs to be a better balance out there.

    But, as I walked on, down Columbus, and then over to Amsterdam, I began to enjoy being out in the City. Hearing people’s conversations on the street, and the movement and action of coming and going. I know it was only like 50% of NYC, but it was a friendly reminder that this was once a city that I wanted to be in and explore. It was nice to see people, even from a safe six-foot distance.

  • Playgrounds and The Kid’s Mental Health

    Playgrounds and The Kid’s Mental Health

    Yesterday, I talked about how the virus may affect us and our kids in the future. I think about this often, especially when me and the kid head to the playground.

    When the playgrounds were closed in the City, it was awful for all of us. We tried to stay active by going for walks twice a day. The one nice benefit of this was that we got to explore all the streets in our neighborhood, but nonetheless it was not a substitute for a playground. Every time we walked through a park, and the kid laid eyes on the playground, I would get the question of, “When can we go back in there?” There was never an acceptable answer.

    With the lack of physically activity, and having no social contact with other kids, my daughter was starting to act out, and undertake behaviors she had never demonstrated before. She was more prone to scream, argue, throw things, and have temper tantrums, the likes she hadn’t done at least since she was three. We had been lucky in having a child that loved to sleep, and went to bed with no issues, but since April, she has been fighting going to bed, and getting up several times a night.

    Now that playgrounds have been open for almost a month now, it has made this situation more tolerable for the kid. Her behavior has gotten better, and she is generally sleeping solidly again. There are still flair ups, from time to time. I am sure that with the kid having a chance to be around other kids, and act out her frustrations and fears, that she is finding ways to cope with all of this stuff. It has been our one glimmer of hope in this season of unpredictability.