I think we're all starting to get a bit sad that our time here is coming to an end; I know I certainly am. We're making the most of the time we've got left, though, and today was another busy day. Once again, bagels at The Bean, and then we took for the Statue of Liberty. The lines were soul-crushing at first glance, but the ferries are big, so we got on the boat and out to Liberty Island quickly. It's difficult to look at the Statue of Liberty without imagining what it must've been like for an immigrant from eastern Europe to see her for the first time rising above the horizon a hundred years ago. So much about New York City would be unrecognizable to that immigrant, but the statue remains essentially the same.
All three of the kids were buzzing with excitement as the ferry neared the island. Alison has been obssessed with the statue since first learning about it in school two years ago. Henry went into a panic whenever the statue slipped out of his sight, and only calmed when she appeared again in the adjacent window. Kate was a bit confused about the whole thing. Months ago when we first started talking about our trip to New York, Alison showed Kate a picture of the Statue of Liberty and explained we'd be seeing her in New York. Somehow, then, Kate equated the statue with the city. So as we've been touring around the city this past week, whenever Kate saw Lady Liberty -- and her image is almost everywhere -- she announced, "There's York!" Yesterday, though, she finally figured it out, and today all she could talk about was the Statue of Liberty.
By the time we finished looking at the statue and spending time at the museum on nearby Ellis Island, it was just about five o'clock and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. We hopped a train for a Thai restaurant I found called the Holy Basil. The wait was a bit longer than three squirrly, hungry kids could put up with, but the food was phenomenal. Seriously.
Now here's the most amazing part of the day. After we left the restaurant we were wandering down 2nd Avenue on our way to get some dessert when we came across a theater where Stomp was playing. It had never occurred to either Leslie or me to take the family to a show, but here we had stumbled upon the one Broadway show (okay, we were two blocks from Broadway) to which we could actually bring three children, and it was starting in fifteen minutes. The show was sold out, but once again fate smiled upon us. There was no scalping this time, but four excellent tickets went unclaimed and we were able to get in about two minutes before curtain. Leslie and I had seen the show before, and it was just as great as I remembered, but the best part tonight was watching Henry watch the show. This is a boy whose normal attention span hovers somewhere between a millisecond and a nanosecond, and he was focused like I've never seen him, laughing and clapping throughout the one hundred minute performance.
The worst part for me? I think that was when Kate whispered that she had to go poopoo very badly. In Katespeak, what this really means is, "I've just crapped my pants and I'd like you to clean up the mess." Weighing the potential disruptions of leaving a theater during a performance against allowing a child to remain in a theater with crap in her drawers, I chose the latter. After I cleaned her up in the theater restroom after the show, I hoped no one would notice the underwear I was hiding in my hand, but Kate blew my cover. In a ridiculously loud voice, perhaps so she could be heard above the din of the crowded bathroom, she asked, "Daddy, you put mine dirty underwear in your pocket?" I had no choice but to admit that I had.
After a few more cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery, all was forgotten and we started thinking about tomorrow.
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