Meera’s First Trip to NYC

Well, Little Miss Meera (a.k.a. Baby Sister — or, more recently, as K & O have become fond of calling her — “Cocoa Pugs Baby Cakes”) has been indoctrinated to the J-M Family’s Favorite City. On Sunday she hit the Big Apple for the first time. We drove in to pick up Sadie for an overnight visit (given that she was coming all the way from Maine, picking her up in NYC was the least we could do). More on that in a later post. Anyway, the pick-up time for Sadie was 3:30. So we drove in early to make the most of the day. None of us could quite believe that Meera’s almost two years old and hadn’t been to NYC yet. But when we realized it, we knew that we had to remedy that situation ASAP. We live only 90 minutes away and have been taking K & O in forever. But in the past couple of years we’ve always found ways to get babysitters for Meera while us four “older folks” go in without her. This has been more for her sake than for anything else; she’s not like K & O — she is easily overwhelmed and is a homebody at heart. All that considered, she did A-o.k.  It was baptism by fire for our baby girl. She fell asleep in the car on the way there. When she woke up we were entering the Holland Tunnel and then– BAM! She’s in her stroller being pushed around Chinatown by her brother. Owen was in his glory proudly parading her around. It was a sunny spring Sunday and Chinatown was bustling like only NYC Chinatown can bustle. This is the kind of thing that K & O live for. They thrive on this stuff. And, in contrast, it was totally overwhelming for Meera. But in true Meera Grace fashion, she handled it with steadfast grace. While Owen navigated the sidewalks– stopping every two seconds for peering at the many sights to see — Meera managed to tolerate it all without any big to-do. (For the millionth time we thank our lucky stars we got blessed with the soul that we did; she is incredible).

Of course, we had to take her to Joe’s Shanghai. This is our family’s favorite restaurant experience on the entire planet. We just had to bring her there. In anticipation of going, she was told about 100 various Joe’s Shanghai stories by her older wiser more experienced city-going Chinatown-eating brothers. We’re pretty sure she thought we were all absolutely crazy while we stood on the sidewalk for the 45 minute wait for a table. While K & O chatted it up with the mob of Chinese families waiting with us to be seated for Sunday lunch (“Ni Hau!” “Ni Hau!” “Ni Hau!” followed by extensive conversations on every topic under the sun), Meera clung to Braydon like he was her lifeline. We weren’t sure how this was all going to play out… until we got inside, seated safely at our table…

…turns out, Meera did not disappoint! She settled in, lightened up, and had no problem digging in to her first soup dumplings, Shanghai flat noodles, and stir fried green beans. She reminded us so much of K & O at Joe’s Shanghai when they were her age. She ate with gusto— much to the delight of the four of us and the entire Joe’s Shangai staff (as well as many other patrons of the restaurant that day who, with huge uncontainable smiles on their faces, watched our three kids devour ridiculous amounts of the authentic Chinese food laid out in front of them).

That seemed to warm Meera right up to NYC. From that point on she was right at home in our beloved city. Later, in Washington Square Park, Meera was fitting right in — surely mistaken by many as a true blue NYC girl.

First trip to New York, New York. Another big first for Meera Grace.