Our stay in New York (NY trip part 5)

This fortnight has gone very quickly. We've spent it mostly with very busy grandchildren. X has had 11 days holiday for the spring break although I would say that it feels more like winter for us despite the beautiful flowering cherries which adorn lots of the streets around Prospect Heights, not to mention the magnolias which are truly stunning and daffodils and tulips in the gardens.
We seem to have discovered every playground in Brooklyn and a few elsewhere. The favoured one, however is the Underhill Playground near to home and therefore familiar and easy to get to. X still needs some supervision in the playground as stuff happens. J, recently two years old, likes using the plastic rolling stock, especially a noisy lawn mower/vacuum cleaner and is prone to applying a bit of juvenile thuggery to bigger children in order to hijack it if he thinks it's time for his turn. It is a very friendly place to go. Everyone looks out for everyone else's children and are also quite happy to chat a bit but are not invasive in any way. We have greatly enjoyed the friendliness we have encountered here.

Reading is another favourite pastime and as with all children the same stories are read repeatedly. One book being enjoyed by X is called 'A Wrinkle in Time' by Madeleine L'Engle. The school also requires half an hours reading per night which needs to be documented but of course is occasionally missed depending on the tiredness factor.
Yesterday morning we accompanied younger child to a music lesson which coincidentally is run by an Aussie from Manly. This being the case, he picked on us a bit for being Aussie as well but it was all in good fun. The children really enjoyed the singing, dancing and music although most of them took a few minutes to thaw maybe because there had been a two week break and it was also held at a different venue. The class was well geared to small children with plenty of percussion activity of different kinds, repetition of songs, short items and varied activity and helping put away instruments and help carry containers to their allotted spot, for which our little one was a volunteer every time. Later we observed a subway song being sung on the train as we travelled to dinner.
In the afternoon, we took X to the planetarium in the Museum of Natural history where we saw a movie called Dark Universe which is about dark matter but this proved a bit complicated although she enjoyed watching the stars on the ceiling screen. Afterwards we went into Central Park where much fun was had playing on a large rock amongst other children before we joined the rest of the family in the lobby of father's workplace before heading up to Queens for dinner at a Thai café.

Photo from Google images

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