little adventures

On Saturday while I did my chicken feeding duty at the Children's Magical Garden, Taiyo stood there in the drizzling rain holding tight onto his little red umbrella. He looked like he was listening to the sound of rain.

And today it was sunny and I felt like we owed ourselves a big day out - we've been a bit lazy this season. So I asked Taiyo where he wanted to go, and he said, maybe to the Children's Museum. On bicycle. We've been there once on a bicycle, but it was during summer. It might be a bit too cold for bicycle, I said. It's ok, he said. It's cold and it's kind of far. It's ok. It was like 30 degrees, but it didn't feel that cold. I was working out sweats before reaching the halfway point on the bridge. We went through South Williamsburg where orthodox Jews were celebrating Purim, I don't think it was supposed to be like that originally, but now it's Jewish Halloween. Kids and Adult in costumes were everywhere. There were lots of loud music. Some men were dancing in circles on the sidewalk. It seemed even crazier than Halloween. This holiday actually made the Children's Museum less crowded and chaotic because large Jewish families with 5-10 kids and uncles and aunts and grandparents and parents didn't come today. So Taiyo was playing with a doll house for a long time, although only doll he could find was a firefighter. Then this woman placed her daughter right next to him and told her to play with it. She took some furniture Taiyo had carefully placed around the house and gave it to the girl. Taiyo snatched the piece back. She yelled at Taiyo that he had to share. The girl didn't seem to be enthusiastic but the mother grabbed another furniture and placed it in front of her and told her to play with it. Taiyo of course snatched it back immediately and the woman started yelling at me that I wasn't telling him to share. I said I did, because I did. But she was yelling at me. I said you didn't have to create a conflict by making her play with the toys he was playing with. She grabbed the girl onto her enormous hip and walked away, cursing. I felt almost traumatized by this experience but I let him play until he was bored. No one else really bothered him. We stayed until closing and he slept through the noise of Purim parties in Williamsburg. I had to pedal against gusting wind all the way I promised myself to upgrade the bike before next long bike ride. He's getting a bit too heavy. I can't believe I was riding with him back and forth from Greenpoint during hurricane blackout just four months ago. It was probably the most workout I've done in months.