2015
like one of those sappy hallmark movies
maura @ 9:39 pm
Today we went to Brooklyn Bridge Park to walk around and see the new stuff that’s been added over the past couple of years, parky stuff and arty stuff and foody stuff. We took the train to Brooklyn Heights then walked to river under the Manhattan Bridge, near the stoney beach where the kid used to love to throw rocks in the river. Then we walked the park all the way down to Atlantic Ave., ogling Manhattan and the bridges and the river and the barges and the tugboats as we went. We saw some new art in the form of lots of climbable and sittable neon orange benches, as well as a neat maze-like arrangement of vertical mirrors about 6 inches wide and varying heights (kid and adult-sized). We saw the pop-up pool, and the enormous new condo construction everyone’s angry about (I like to think of them as “first to flood!” Thank you, wealthy future residents, for taking the next storm surge for the borough). We saw the new pier with all the sports and noticed that they moved the kayaks from where we once did the free Saturday morning kayak a few years ago. We ended up at a restaurant on the pier near Atlantic that’s not the same as the old restaurant, right near the water playground and slide playground and swing playground that the kid used to love when it first opened.
It’s taken me a while to realize this but I am not quite ready to be finished with doing the stuff that parents of littler kids do. I love my teenager, really I do, even despite the teen spirit. But on the weekends I still want to do the elementary school stuff. I want to go to the natural history museum and the science museum and the transit museum and the aquarium and the many zoos, esp. the Queens Zoo, which we unfortunately neglected until a few years ago (and which has the adorable little deer-like animal called the pudu!). I want to go see the new Pixar movie.
I know that adults can do all of those things, and in the abstract I’m fine with doing all of those things. I’m not embarrassed to want to see the new Pixar movie — Amy Poehler is flat out awesome. But unless the kid has something else to do it feels weird to go do this stuff without him, weird to think of him at home while we’re at a non-exclusively-adults thing.
So, in conclusion, growing up is weird, and parenting gives you all the feels. #statingtheobvious
