This post was originally published last December, before I started sharing Monday Dreaming links and well before my site redesign. Since much about it fit my mood this Monday,  I decided to update it for this year and share it again.  Hope you enjoy!

We decorated our Christmas tree this weekend and before it tipped over leaving a pool of water and shattered glass in its wake (miraculously only two ornaments were irredeemably smashed) both of the boys remarked on the large number of angels that don its branches. And it’s true. I have an inordinate love of angels from fat naked cherubs to Victorian damsels dressed in red velvet and feathery wings to their more ethereal, shimmering cousins in gauze and sparkles.

I have of course seen many wonderful angels in my travels (the Uffizi alone is home to untold numbers), but a sentimental favorite place to visit them is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

My mother took me to the Metropolitan Museum a number of times, starting when I was about Tommy’s age. She would dangle a visit to the Egyptian wing in front of my nose while coaxing me to look at paintings. Once we were in a gallery she would ask me to look carefully at every picture. “What do you like about it?” she would ask. “What colors do you see? What shapes? Why do you think the artist painted the shadow here, the light there? What secrets is that woman hiding?” And she would tell me stories about the artists, explaining who was friends with whom and why he painted pictures of the same church over and over again.

I remember her laughing at paintings that struck her fancy, a laugh of such pure delight that I would laugh too as if I understood, while peering at a still life with a dead chicken at its center or a portrait of a woman holding a lapdog or a picture of a resigned-looking Mary receiving the word of her miracle from an angel. As a child I didn’t get what would possibly be funny in Mary’s expression (Who me? You’ve got to be kidding!) although now that I am a mother myself, and know the combination of joy and terror that accompanies a positive pregnancy test, her air of patient exasperation makes me smile too.

One of the last visits I paid to the museum with my mother before she died was at the holidays. We walked all the way up Fifth Avenue from Grand Central Station, a distance of about forty blocks. By the time we arrived we were windblown and tired and in need of refreshment (I’m sure I was also snappish and annoyed with her as I tended to get when she did things like insist that we walk all that way). I let her guide me and she pulled us in through the busy lobby, into the dim medieval sculpture gallery at the heart of the museum.

Ah yes, how could I have forgotten the angel tree? Any tiredness or irritation was instantly gone as I gazed up at the impossible beauty of those angels draped in satin. The tree was gorgeously illuminated against a delicate screen, the angels ready for flight. A huge nativity scene was spread out at the bottom. It was as if every Renaissance painting in the museum had come suddenly to life and converged on this one sacred space.

This past weekend as we eventually righted and stabilized our tree and cleaned up the mess I thought about that visit and about my mother who loved Christmas and also tended to suffer from disasters big and small.  While we were completing our second, more successful round of tree trimming, Teddy said, “It’s OK that your mom isn’t here to help us Mommy. Because she’s an angel. She’s watching us from heaven.” It is of course my fondest hope that he is right. But I wish that she could be here to show them the earthly angels on their first visit to the Met, perhaps on her birthday. She would be turning 67 next Sunday.

Although she isn’t here, I do look forward to the day when I will walk into that hall with my boys and see that magical tree covered with angels, the nativity scene at the bottom like the true Christmas gift it is. Then, maybe, they will understand why I love angels so dearly.

And maybe they will connect that love with the watercolor of an angel that their grandmother painted, a painting that watched over both of them while they slept as babies. Maybe they will see a bit of her, the woman they never knew.

If you’re looking for a way to be an angel for others this holiday season, please visit the Passports With Purpose site where we have surpassed our goal of $13,000 for a school in Cambodia and are now working to raise even more money to fund things like clean water and a school nurse. All funds raised go directly to American Assistance for Cambodia (AAfC), which is a non-profit 501(c)3 registered in the United States; this organization will oversee all aspects of building the school. Ten dollars buys you a chance to win $150 to spend on photographs at Shutterfly or one of many other wonderful prizes. Chance to win make wonderful holiday gifts.

What are you dreaming of on this Monday? Please feel free to share a link below, making sure you link directly to your post, not your site’s homepage and that you link back to this post. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

Photo of Angel Tree courtesy of kamalaboulhosn via Flickr.

Photo of nativity scene courtesy of Genista via Flickr.

One thing that has been really nice about all of the travel we did this summer is that we’ve hung out with lots of friends who have kids, many of whom we hadn’t seen in years (and some of whose children we had never met). What better excuse could we have to travel than to see what the next generation is up to?

My favorite thing about this is that any awkwardness for the grownups was eliminated by the automatic way the kids instantly become best friends, even if they weren’t close in age.  In this picture Tommy plays with our friend Tom and Karen’s daughter on the Staten Island Ferry. Boy did he make her giggle!

For Photo Friday at Delicious Baby. Please visit there to see many other terrific travel photos.

Note: I’ve been writing about New York for the past two weeks. Starting next week, I’ll be celebrating the arrival of fall by doing a wrap-up of what I learned during our 4000 miles on the road between June and September. Stay tuned!

When we were going home from our dessert-as-dinner feast at Dylan’s Candy Bar, Matt said to me “Just for the record, I’m yet to have a meal this weekend that I’ve enjoyed.” He made a fair point. Although our lunch at Grand Central was tasty, our other food choices were adequate at best. I take full responsibility for this, as it’s generally my job to figure out where we’ll eat. Normally I come prepared with a detailed list, but I had mostly left our dining options up to chance figuring that in New York there would always be something great nearby. And there often was – but it wasn’t usually an appropriate place to bring the kids. We ended up eating several meals that were adequate at best and had the added bonus of being fairly pricey.

I’m happy to report that thanks to Twitter and in particular Sam Chapnick, aka @nyc_mom, who blogs about everything New York and families at KidCity I did a much better job of planning for brunch on our last morning. I had posted a request for restaurant recommendations in the neighborhood of the American Museum of Natural History, and she suggested Café Lalo. I loved everything about this charming restaurant, from the breezy, bright dining room with its windows wide open to the leafy street to the coffee, which was served in large bowl-like cups with a side of steamed milk. They serve brunch all day every day and have a really fun menu with choices from around the world such as the Caribbean Breakfast of tropical fruit with a pastry and mango butter or the fabulous Moroccan Delight which is eggs mixed with fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, garlic, and jalapenos and served with pita bread.

This is definitely a kid-friendly place with a big enough menu to satisfy even the pickiest eater. I discovered at the end of the meal that they only accept only cash as payment, and while Matt took the boys to the nearest ATM, I stood at the sidewalk and watched as the staff cheerfully helped families with children stow their strollers in a basement room. It would make a fabulous place to stop for an afternoon treat if you were exploring the Upper West Side – the pastries and cakes looked absolutely dreamy. And if you need a pick-me-up with your brunch, there is an entire menu of champagne cocktails.

Travel-With-Kids Tip: Even in a big city like New York it’s best not to leave your dining options to chance if you can help it. Doing a little research beforehand and giving yourself several places to choose from for each meal will guarantee that you eat the way you and your kids like and is also likely to save you money in the process. If you’re not sure what your exact location will be at mealtime, scout out places that surround attractions you know you’ll visit or that are an easy walk from your hotel.

After brunch we headed over to the American Museum of Natural History. The boys were very excited to visit the museum from the movie A Night at the Museum and we had to take lots of pictures of the entrance with its statue of Theodore Roosevelt who figures prominently as a character in the film.

Our friends Tom and Karen met us there with their two little ones and after a quick look at the dioramas of stuffed North American mammals, we headed for the Hall of Biodiversity. I was surprised at how interested Tommy was in the various charts and graphs, most of them distressing testaments to the sad state of our environment and the contributions we make to it. We read about how many resources the average Indian uses versus the average North American, how many people go hungry on a daily basis around the world, and how many species are disappearing. This was sobering stuff, but Tommy was fascinated – and optimistic. As I read him grim statistic after grim statistic, his response was almost always “well, it could be worse” or “that’s why we shouldn’t throw stuff away or waste food.”

We spent a good amount of time hanging out under the giant blue whale in the Hall of Ocean Life watching the underwater video and listening to the sounds of the sea. Teddy loved the dioramas showing a variety of marine scenes, especially one in a dark corner where a sperm whale devours a giant squid.

Then it was on to the Fossil Halls, practically a museum unto themselves, which we made our way through much more quickly than I would have expected, given Teddy’s love of all preshistoric life. But you never know what’s going to seize your children’s imagination on a particular day. Tom and Karen’s son desperately wanted to see the large figure from The Night at The Museum who says “Dum-Dum, give me some gum-gum” and so we ended up in a back corner of the third floor where there is a fascinating exhibit about Margaret Mead and her study of the people of the South Pacific islands. The kids loved seeing “Dum-Dum” but were also intrigued by the Javanese puppets and other artifacts to be found there. Our visit ended with a quick stroll through the Hall of Planet Earth and a speedy turn around the outside of the Hayden Planetarium theatre where we got to see how much we would weight on the Moon.

Travel-With-Kids Tip: Grabbing a guide and making a rough game plan with your kids when you first arrive at a museum is a great idea, especially if it’s a larger museum. But be sure to be flexible and let their interest and enthusiasm guide how long you spend in each area. Most importantly: treat every museum like you’ll be back. Nothing can kill the joy like tromping through exhibits once you and your kids are “done.” I usually plan to stay two to three hours even in the most engaging museums. If you leave when there’s still stuff to see, everyone is excited for a return visit.

The museum is huge and we definitely left plenty for next time – we didn’t get to see a show in the planetarium, the meteorites, the Hall of Human Origins, the collection of spectacular opals, or the giant canoe in the Grand Gallery or the galleries dedicated to Native American life. But we were all ready to get a quick snack in the cafeteria and head out.

Travel-With-Kids Tip: Give the kids a camera to use. Mine have my old digital one that I don’t use anymore, but a disposable camera works just fine too. They love taking their own pictures, and you’ll always learn something about what captures their imagination by watching them do so. And there’s lots you can do with the photos when you get home: print them off and paste them into a journal for your children to decorate with stickers or write in; help them make a poster to decorate their room or playroom; or make photo books at one of the websites that offer this service.

We had driven up the museum and parked in its garage on 81^st Street and so were able to hop right into our car, zip on down to the Lincoln Tunnel and make our way home to Delaware by dinnertime. All in all, it was a great getaway weekend, very easy to pull off with a minimum of planning, even if I clearly needed to do a little more on the dining front. And you know what? We didn’t purchase any souvenirs (unless you count candy as a kind of edible souvenir). But we did leave with tons of photos, enthusiasm for the wide selection of playgrounds available in Manhattan, and a definite desire to return soon.

If you enjoyed this post, I hope you’ll visit the first and second posts I wrote about our 2009 Labor Day weekend trip to New York City.

September 11, 2001 is the day that I can say that I truly felt like a parent for the first time.

When the first plane struck the World Trade Center, I had no idea what had happened as I was in a dentist’s chair having my teeth cleaned and fighting back first-trimester nausea. I had learned I was pregnant for the first time only about ten days before and it still felt completely surreal, except for the constant struggle not to throw up.

On my way home out of habit, I turned on National Public Radio and was listening in horror to Tom Gjelten reporting from the Pentagon about what had happened in New York. All of a sudden, he paused, and sounding vaguely alarmed said that he had just heard an evacuation order over the PA system. After a few moments, it became clear that something terrible had happened there as well. My brain started to process things as if I were drunk and trying to be overly careful to compensate.

My first thought was “I’m on Interstate 95, right between New York and Washington D.C. I must get home, and quickly.”

My second thought was, “What kind of world is my child going to be born into?”

My third and fourth and fifth thought were, “The baby. The baby. The baby.” I drove the rest of the way home with one hand over my stomach like an evil eye to ward off whatever could possibly fall on us from the sky, perhaps even the sky itself, which at that moment seemed quite possibly to be crashing down.

When the government sent us a check a month later, telling us to “go out and spend money” as if that would fix the problems the United States faced, Matt and I decided that we would take that money right back to New York. Matt had actually gone to Manhattan on September 15 to stay with a friend whose wife was on a business trip to Spain and who was having a terrible time getting home, so he had been in the thick of all the immediate grief. And we had seen the stories about how the tourism industry there had been decimated, how restaurants and stores were closing, and we decided that if we were to spend money, it should be there.

We arrived on a gorgeous October afternoon. The city was decorated as if for the Fourth of July; American flags everywhere. The posters put up by family members of loved ones who had been lost in the tower were still in place, no longer at all hopeful, but as shrines to those who were gone. The faces of those who had died were everywhere, pictures taken at weddings or family picnics, the words “Has anyone seen?”, “We Need Your Help”, or “Missing” a stark contrast to their smiles.

When we got to our hotel in midtown, we discovered that it was full of firefighters in their dress uniforms. They were streaming into the city from all over the country so that every one of their comrades who died would have a full honor guard at their funeral.

After we checked in, we walked up Fifth Avenue. The lions in front of the New York Public Library wore Yankees caps and it was possible for a moment to feel only optimism, to forget the images that had filled our television screens and minds for weeks.

That is, until we came upon one of those funerals in progress.

It was unspeakably beautiful and sad, everything that is the best and worst about being human.

This past weekend, when we were in Battery Park, I watched as tourist after tourist posed, smiling in front of “The Sphere” – a statue symbolizing peace that used to sit in front of the World Trade Center. I looked at the eternal flame in front of its bent and dented form and at the perfectly blue sky, so exactly as it was on that Tuesday eight years ago. And I felt so grateful for New York, all its beauty and grittiness, for its ability to remember even if others have perhaps forgotten. I looked at my boys who were more interested in pigeons than the statue and I prayed fiercely at that moment that they – that none of us – should ever know a morning like that distant one when I lay my hand over my stomach and knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

Note: I’ve been writing about New York all week and will be back soon with the story of our last day there. This post is for Photo Friday at Delicious Baby.

Here’s something that I discovered about making my children hoof it around New York: It leads to good nights of sleep for everyone. Often when we travel, Tommy wakes up absurdly early and then is too exhausted by the time attractions like museums actually open to enjoy them (this happened to us last fall when we went to Washington, DC). But after a long day during which we covered most of the southern end of Central Park, to say nothing of the east side of Midtown, the boys were exhausted and actually slept until just past 6:30, a veritable triumph for us. (It didn’t hurt of course that Tommy was at the University of Delaware football game until 9:30 p.m. the preceding evening. I may need to schedule all our travel days so they follow night games.)

We didn’t want to sleep in too late anyway as our game plan was after a hit of coffee and donuts to walk directly up 33^rd Street from the apartment we rented to the Empire State Building. As I mentioned last week, this was the place the boys most wanted to go. It was a perfectly clear morning and getting there early worked – we made it quickly to the top and were able to enjoy the view without an overwhelming crowd. Tommy took loads of pictures, including one deeply blue one of the sky. There’s something absolutely stunning about being up that high over such a big city, and doing it with kids is even more fun. Tommy was most enthralled with the taxis flashing yellow below us and it made me look more carefully at the pageant below, so perfectly visible in the crystalline air.

Travel-With-Kids Tip: Getting to the Empire State Building during the first hour of operation is a great idea (they open at 8 a.m. every day). So is buying tickets online in advance and printing them off. We did both things and were at the observatory on the 86^th floor in 25 minutes. By the time we descended the lines were already twice as long. I’m glad I chose to skip the much more expensive Express Pass in favor of getting going early.

I’ll admit that I was a bit slapdash in planning this trip and didn’t think to bring breakfast food with us to Manhattan. This was a real oversight since we had access to a full kitchen. By the time we’d been up in the observation deck for about twenty minutes the boys were completely chilled and ravenously hungry (apparently a couple of donuts and some juice just doesn’t cut it until mid-morning). So we never did make it all the way to the 102^nd floor observatory up in the needle. But that leaves something for next time right?

After a coffee shop breakfast (and by coffee shop I really mean diner – think the place where Jerry Seinfeld hung out) we headed down to Battery Park at the lower tip of Manhattan where we met our friends Tom and Karen and their little boy and girl who are almost five and two respectively. The kids enjoyed the view of the Statue of Liberty and a good romp on a playground before we caught the Staten Island Ferry, one of those exceptions in life that proves the rule in that it is a) absolutely free and b) beautiful and fun.

In addition, I’ve since discovered that the beers for sale on the boat are very cheap. I’m feeling a bit disappointed in myself that I didn’t notice this at the time, but will plead the exigencies of making sure my four-year-old didn’t fall overboard or get swept up with one of the hundreds of other families also occupying the deck. Of course, most of those families did just what we did at the other end, which was exit the boat, turn around, and get right on the next ferry heading back to Manhattan.

Travel-With-Kids Tip: DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT pay to ride a boat around the Statue of Liberty. The Staten Island Ferry is clean, fun, and most importantly, free. The view of the statue is fabulous and the ride takes about 25 minutes each way. It is in every respect an absolutely perfect outing with kids. And on the Manhattan side there’s a playground right across the street from the terminal.

When we returned everyone was hungry. We wandered across the street toward the financial district to discover the New Amsterdam Village, constructed as part of the 400^th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival. It came complete with a windmill, clogs, herring, and French fries. But it was also crowded and the food lines were slow, so instead of stopping we walked about ten minutes over to the South Street Seaport. This is another place that is very touristy and yet has its own specific charms. We had a forgettable lunch at the Heartland Brewery where the beer was better than the food, which took forever to arrive.

But lunch was basically just a chance to sit down and get something in our stomachs and was far from the main attraction. While we ate, two different balloon-animal-making clowns showed up. Teddy requested and got a giraffe, but Tom and Karen’s son was the one to truly score, with two swords, a holster, and a balloon hat. He immediately decided he was a pirate. And so we swashbuckled our way past the tall-ship replicas, past the tourists buying margaritas in plastic cups, past the guests arriving for someone’s wedding, to the water’s edge, where the East River was our oyster.

The steps at the end of the tourist strip are like one sitting in the middle of a Bryon Barton book about transportation. In addition to admiring the Brooklyn Bridge and watching the automobile and pedestrian traffic crossing it, there was a veritable feast of vehicles to watch including helicopters, tugboats pushing barges, speedboats (some of them with bows painted to look like sharks) and finally a replica clipper ship, which our very own Pirate King declared to be his. And as if in answer to his claim, the boat sailed up and docked right next to us while we munched on a tasty mix of root- beer and island-punch jelly beans.

After we had filled up on jelly beans and the view, Tom and Karen decided it was time to head for home. Matt and I didn’t have a clear plan for our next move, so we happily crossed South Street to the small playground that Tommy had spied with his eagle eyes. While the children were delighting in the crowds of kids playing there and making new friends left and right, I got the idea that instead of dinner, we’d just have dessert and that I would take them up to Serendipity3, an Upper East Side landmark famous for its frozen hot chocolate (or frrrozen as the menu says) and ice cream sundaes, to say nothing of the kitschy gift shop and celebrity sightings. (I had my own brush with glory there when I was 16 and ran directly into Bryan Adams as he was leaving. He literally had to help me up off the floor while I gaped and sputtered.)

Unfortunately, after a zippy subway ride up there on the Lexington Ave. Express, we discovered that the line for the restaurant was ridiculous. Since being a blogger doesn’t exactly make me famous enough to walk right in (looking at the website I can see they only get excited when the Jonas Brothers or Brad and Angelina drop by), we didn’t even bother to ask how long the wait was but instead walked a block back to Dylan’s Candy Bar, much to the boys’ delight.

Travel-With-Kids Tip: When you’re traveling, a playground is pretty much always a good idea, especially if there are other children on it. Don’t assume that because to you it looks lame or untended or because there’s already been a playground break in your itinerary and who needs another one? that your children will feel the same way. They will relish the chance to run, yell, and interact with others their own age who are not their siblings. And assuming your kids are old enough not be in continual mortal peril, you can sit on a bench and relax. That is what I call a win-win.

We had visited the store on the previous evening as well, for an orgy of candy buying. This store really is amazing, decorated as if by a trippy Willie Wonka with giant lollypops and gummy bears. Even the illuminated steps have candy embedded in them. I’m not even certain I really saw everything that they had on offer, but the website says they offer 5000 kinds of candy and I believe it. I know that they do have:

• Every kind of chewy sour candy you can imagine from Cherry Coke Bottles to Sour Skittles
• Gum balls the size of my fist
• A rainbow selection of rock candy, jelly beans, and M & M’s
• A dizzying array of chocolate bars, including milk chocolate with bacon
• An entire section dedicated to vintage candy including Charleston Chews, which I hadn’t seen since I was about ten years old
• Cotton candy

Unfortunately, I don’t have such favorable things to say about the café on the top floor, which is where we headed on the second night. The décor is as bright and whimsical as the rest of the store, and there is the added enhancement of videos that show and endless loop of old candy ads. A favorite of mine was the bride and groom kissing for the duration of the Big Red commercial – at the end the maid actually dusts them off with a feather duster

I was able to enjoy this ad, along with all the others, multiple times as the service in the café was slow to the point of absurdity. Matt had to wait in line for at least twenty minutes to place our order. Then the befuddled staff took another ten minutes to serve him his cupcake and make Teddy’s ice cream sundae. Tommy and I had ordered frozen hot chocolates (only one r on this menu) and we waited and waited and waited with no sign of them. When I went up to check on their status after fifteen minutes I got blank looks and the explanation that “we ran out of whipped cream and had to make more.” It was another ten minutes before they finally served our treats and when they did I discovered that they had made me the wrong one. By then I was in no mood to complain.

And really, what did I have to complain about? I watched Teddy devour his Perfectly Peanut Butter sundae and Tommy alternate munches of chocolate-covered marshmallow with slurps of his Simply Perfect frozen hot chocolate and thought that every child should have a chance to enjoy dessert for dinner as part of a Manhattan spree. Eloise herself would be proud.

As we walked back to our apartment, Matt pointed out the illuminated Chrysler Building, which prompted us to look back at the Empire State Building all decked out for Labor Day in red, white, and blue. “I like New York at night,” Teddy said. I agreed.

I hope you’ll visit the first post of our New York City story as well as Day 3, in which we finally got a good meal as well as a good dose of dinosaur bones.

So I made good on our promise to take lots of pictures during our three-day weekend in New York, returning home with over 300 of them, including about fifty taken by Tommy (don’t worry – you won’t be subjected to nearly that many – I’m just making my point). And although I said planned to, what I couldn’t seem to do was stay away from Central Park. On a gorgeous end-of-summer weekend it was just too hard to resist. And so resist it we did not!

We didn’t begin our first day in the park. After driving up from Delaware and then dropping off our car and bags at The Envoy Club in the Midtown neighborhood of Murray Hill, we walked up to Grand Central Terminal. My two suburban children were hungry and after we had walked about halfway there Tommy revealed that he needed a toilet and that he was tired of walking (this proved a theme of the weekend – for reasons that are difficult to comprehend, my child who will hike for miles in the woods poops out after four short city blocks. His brother, for whom we did not bring a stroller, was much more good natured about walking. But then he did get carried more than occasionally). So it was with cajoling and perseverance that we made it to our destination, about fifteen blocks from where we started.

Travel-With-Kids Tip: Instead of using the bathrooms in Grand Central Terminal, duck into the Grand Hyatt next door. The restrooms right behind the elevators in the lobby and are spacious and clean.

I chose Grand Central for lunch because there are numerous options in the Dining Concourse; I thought it would be fun if everyone could choose for him- or herself what to eat. Tommy and I enjoyed sushi, while Matt had Indian food. Teddy, sensing that parental guard was down, had an apple turnover for his lunch. And earned a big smile and a thank you from the woman serving him when he peeped thanks at her (Little Chick is back in force these days). It was really fun to eat under the low arches, listening to the announcements of arriving and departing trains and watching the continuous parade of travelers. “This is certainly different than Delaware!” Tommy kept exclaiming and I knew that he was enjoying the feeling of being at the center of someplace important, even as it overwhelmed him a little.

After we finished our lunch we took the boys up to the Main Concourse so that they could see the starry ceiling and the famous clock. I explained that when I was a girl the ceiling was dark with soot and how I love to visit now and see it in its pale-green glory, the signs of the Zodiac twinkling just as they should. Teddy was especially enchanted to see Pegasus, and I think Tommy loved the idea that people have been meeting under the clock for generations. And of course, since they are both huge fans of both Madagascar movies, they loved seeing the “real live” version of the train station where the animals were captured after they escaped from the zoo.

We had planned to take the subway uptown, but there were so many people waiting to buy tickets in the station that we hopped in a cab instead. I know that this may be considered a controversial move, but I will admit that when it really seems prudent, I will take my children into cabs without car seats, especially now that they are bigger. They both wore shoulder seat belts and enjoyed riding in the cab very much, and since it only took us about five minutes to reach Central Park South, I felt like it was a reasonable risk.

Travel-With-Kids Tip: Although I’m generally a huge proponent of mass transit, and that’s mostly what we used, it’s a fact that during light holiday-weekend traffic driving around Manhattan can be faster than public transportation. And if your destination is close but just outside walking distance it can be cheaper too – we paid the same amount to cab from Grand Central to Central Park as it would have cost to ride the subway.

The park was crowded, which didn’t bother me as I had expected crowds since it was Labor Day weekend. The line for the Central Park Zoo stretched a good block and half and I dreaded the wait. But it took less than fifteen minutes to get through. The zoo is not one of the great ones for studying a wide variety of animal life but is pretty much just a small and lovely zoo in a fabulous location. There’s a children’s zoo with bunnies and peacocks and pot-bellied pigs and a giant spider’s web, which was of much greater interested to Teddy than Tommy. Inside the main zoo it is the penguin exhibit that is really worth the cost of admission. There are so many of them and they are so funny and close that even though the air smells of ammonia and fish it’s possible to spend a long time in the dim, cool space watching them waddle and swim. Tommy was especially delighted when one decided to hang out in the water right in front of us.

After a long visit with the penguins, we admired the polar bear, the snow leopard (who was fast asleep), and the red panda before taking our leave. Then, with a number of wrong turns, we made our way over to the carousel where we had planned to meet up with Wendy Perrin and her family. Wendy is the consumer news editor for Condé Nast Traveler and a lovely person whose passion in life is travel and mission in life seems to be to make travel easier and more fun for others. If you haven’t checked out The Perrin Post, you should– it’s full of great tips and deals. In fact, it was thanks to Wendy that we were in New York in the first place – I rented the apartment we were staying in after she highlighted Labor Day deals.

Her two boys (who are five and seven) and Tommy and Teddy were old friends pretty much as soon as they met. After a quick carousel ride – you knew that there had to be a carousel ride right? – they insisted on an immediate play date, running ahead of us all the way to the playground (so I guess Tommy’s feet couldn’t have hurt him that badly after all).

Travel-With-Kids Tip: If you’re hanging out in Central Park, you might want to purchase a map of the park or print one off before you go. You can also buy one from numerous vendors in the park itself. It can be tricky to find even major landmarks – I couldn’t locate the carousel once we left the zoo and finally broke down and bought map myself. And if you’re there with kids on a hot sunny day, pack swim suits and water shoes (or have your kids wear them, which is what I did). Many of the playgrounds have water play areas.

The eight of us were joined at the Heckscher Playground by some long-time friends with two small children of their own. Everyone got very sandy and wet and Tommy triumphantly acquainted himself with every crevice of the huge rock that dominates one side of the play area. Later he talked with casual bravado about how he was even able to climb even “the hardest part, ‘cuz I figured out how to hold on.” Once everyone had a chance to get completely filthy and to eat some frozen treats, we decided to make our way through the crowds of vendors selling caricatures, photos of John Lennon, bottles of water, and carriage rides to F.A.O. Schwarz.

Now I know that lots of people think the indoor Ferris wheel at the Toys “R” Us in Times Square is much cooler. But I’ll never forsake the classic pleasure of this enormous toy store at the corner of 58^th Street and Fifth Avenue; it has been one of my happy places for many years. Every time I return it surprises me how good I feel, since I’m generally not much of a shopper and it’s always packed to the gills with people. But there’s just something really magical about it, that even the children pick up on – there’s a distinct lack of whining or begging. Maybe it’s because the people who work there seem to like it. The “toy soldier” guarding the door knew just what to say to every child who entered, including my two. “You look just like Harry Potter!” he said to a beaming Teddy. To Tommy, who was finishing the messiest popsicle I’ve ever seen, he said, “It’s the Joker!” eliciting guffaws from the surrounding crowd.

Like everyone else, once inside we wandered about with our mouths open staring at the acres of toys. From dolls to blocks to puppets to enormous stuffed animals, there is truly something to please every child. And of course, there’s the Big Piano, made famous by Tom Hanks in the movie Big. Teddy had his own five minutes of fame, hopping from one end to the other and peeping.

Then we wandered and wondered for a good hour without buying anything although I was very tempted by the Whatnot Workshop where it is possible to design and make one’s very own Muppet. I wanted to make one to keep in my office. A blogging buddy if you will.

But I resisted temptation and then we said good-bye to all of our friends (and another big thanks to Wendy) and walked over to Dylan’s Candy Bar. I’ll talk more about this place in my post tomorrow (yes, we were there two days in a row). Suffice it to say that they have every candy you’ve ever eaten or dreamed of eating. And then some. Several pounds of the sweet stuff and forty dollars later, we staggered out into the street intent on finding some food that didn’t contain sugar. I had planned for us to eat dinner at the Landmarc Restaurant in the Time Warner Building overlooking Central Park, but I couldn’t see making the kids haul all the way over there. So we walked over to the perfectly adequate Pop Burger on 58^th Street, had some sliders and fries, and made our way back downtown and to bed immediately thereafter, sated in every sense.

Like this post? You might also enjoy MOAT takes Manhattan: Day two which includes The Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, to say nothing of clowns, sharks, and pirates and Day three in which we finally got a good meal as well as a good dose of dinosaur bones.