Second Week in NY...

... is over and we're back home now. I've been so busy with work (good) that I had no time to even upload all the pictures (bad-bad-bad). Check out a really cool letter T that M fashioned out of acorns on one of our walks.

I'm experiencing some kind of writer's block, by the way, so will likely rely on pictures since the exchange rate is so favorable - 1 picture = 1000 words.

So here we go, our second week in NY:

I can't say that we did much. We did go to Brooklyn, more specifically - to Brighton Beach. I wanted to take pictures there for one of my work projects. Needless to say, I also planned on spending major $$$ on books. Fortunately, my favorite store there, St. Petersburg Kniga aka RusKniga improved dramatically in the past year. They now have excellent children's books from some of the best publishers in Russia, including M's favorite series "Жили-были кролики". Plus I got quite a few awesome and surprisingly inexpensive reference books for myself.

The unexpected side-effect of this trip was a rifle-making project my dad and M worked on for our last 2 days in NY. But let me preface by saying that we are not a gun-toting family, nor have membership in NRA. Both Chris and I know how to shoot. I even tried skits once or twice which was totally embarrassing, but a lot of fun.

But you know, boys are boys. Through a combination of things - playdates with older boys, illustrations in books, visiting historical battle reenactments, playing with water guns - M got really excited about guns and pistols.

So little wonder that when he saw a toy rifle at a toy store in Brooklyn he really wanted to have one. Unfortunately, it was not only fairly expensive, but it was extremely cheaply made. So instead I promised M that дедушка would make one for him.

Turns out, it's really a cool project and something that both my dad and M enjoyed working on. The result is pretty awesome-looking too considering that the whole thing was fashioned out of a scrap of plywood, 2 plastic clothes hangers, a spare coil, a length of black hemming ribbon and a leftover black spray paint.

One of the days last week was so stinking hot, that I gave up on playing outside and took M to the air-conditioned mall. Turns out, the kiddo had a blast there running around, climbing all over the toy rides, observing glass-paneled elevators, and looking at all the interesting things in the stores. He loved it so much that he informed me that "молл - это классно и прикольно". Of course it is cool and fun - he got a pair of helicopter jeans (no worries, those are regular jeans, but with wings embroidered on the back pocket and with a real belt with a real belt buckle, "like papa's!"), a jembe drum and a xylophone out of it (plus a small wooden cat figurine that he promptly refashioned into what else - a pistol).

I didn't get out empty-handed either. After much salivating over a pair of skanky heels, I ended up getting a pair of jeans and a T-shirt at Delia*s (ah, it's so nice to know that I can still fit comfortably into size 3/4 in a store that caters to teenagers).

Ok, I'm going to write some more while I have the time, but since it's on a different subject, it'll be in a separate post.