WTF Coffee Lab in Brooklyn. Photo by Nalin Bhutt
Last month, Ettu celebrated his fifth birthday. Prior to the big event, he informed us that he desired nothing greater than to wake up the morning of his birthday to be surrounded in bed by these, and only these, few things: a cupcake, a present, and the company of Nooa, his papa, and me. When we told him that all of that could be arranged and then asked him if it was okay that he was going to wake up that morning in New York instead of Chicago, he seemed a bit worried. Perhaps that might just ruin his grand plans. Well, we did make that little trip to New York, and he did wake up in an apartment in Brooklyn with all the other things he requested (with cupcakes from Clementine's, the lovely bakery right next to our building), and he seemed quite happy, even amidst the change in venue. The boys quickly took to referring to our abode as our "Brooklyn house."
In past years, when we were kidless and fancy free, Nalin and I would take trips to Manhattan and think nothing of being out all day and late into the evening. When we stayed in Chelsea two years ago, with a one-year-old and a nearly three-year-old, it seemed that our enjoyment of this grand city might be compromised, at least in the ways we had formerly known. Perhaps our past, easy-going times in Manhattan as we once knew it was over, or at least put on hold for the time being. Don't get me wrong, we are city people through and through, raising our kids in the heart of Chicago, but something seemed a bit more challenging about our recent visits to New York with small children.
Funny face at great heights
And then we found Brooklyn, choosing this time to stay in Clinton Hill and wander the borough with abandon, taking the G trains and R trains to destinations known and unknown. We had, of course, visited in the past, but this year we took a five-day trip to New York and spent four out of five days in Brooklyn, going into Manhattan really only on the birthday boy's day to fulfill some of the fantasies he had been dreaming of through books at home, as if to build our own story of New York through his eyes, instead of our own: ascending the heights of the Empire State Building, seeing the four-way clock and the ceiling of constellations up close and personal at Grand Central Station, passing the Statue of Liberty and the gateway to my German grandmother's American arrival, and surprising a young space enthusiast with a visit to the Enterprise Space Shuttle at the Intrepid on the Hudson. The rhythms of Christoph Neimann's Subway book coursed through us each and every stop along the way. The rest of the time, we stayed wrapped in our cozy confines of Clinton Hill and Fort Greene in our fabulous airbnb-hosted apartment.
Poached eggs with biscuits and gravy at Milk Bar
And here's what we found and loved in and around our adopted neighborhood and beyond: walking to Choice Market on Lafayette around the corner for our morning coffee fix, pastries and breakfast; Milk Bar near Prospect Park for amazing cappuccinos and a lovely brunch; WTF Coffee Lab on Willoughby Street for seriously good coffee; a ride on the G train west toward the river to eat awesome Thai street food with good friends at Pok Pok NY; and Sunday mid-morning grazing at Smorgasburg, Brooklyn Flea's food haven in Williamsburg. I know this barely begins to cover the vast food oasis that is modern-day Brooklyn, but it was a start, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time, especially with the kids. Perhaps their ages helped, perhaps the pleasant nature of the neighborhoods with kids galore helped, but it was hard not to feel welcome during our brief and lovely stay.
Ettu's drawing of three friends saying goodbye
And this time was made even more special with our friends Brian and Kumiko and little Mia, who became the third musketeer with the boys. On the day we took the Staten Island Ferry to Battery Park, we stopped for a bit of time on Wall Street, eating from the food trucks and enjoying the outdoors with the kids frolicking on the greens up high near the S&P building. It occurred to me that the city, on either side of the East River, has so much to offer families with children. It's just all in the way you navigate it, and that might be different than what we knew before. And that is the joy of travel. New discoveries for the new expansions in our lives. And when we returned to Brooklyn that afternoon to pack and leave for Chicago, we felt sad to leave. For it had become a little home away from home. And we will certainly be back again one day soon.