The Weekender - what happened to the week?

日本 | Japan from Marco Aslan on Vimeo.

I've been quite absent this week (not to say completely out of the blog). I caught a terrible cold and it was a particular busy week. Anyway, I'll try to catch up next week. Although it may be quite hard, since F will be on vacation for the next two weeks.

Above is another video from my very talented brother. Don't you just want to jump on a plane and go to Japan after watching it?

Have a great weekend!

Under the weather

I had a bad bad cold. Of course, after spending the whole week with my sick son, what else could I had been expecting for?

Remember my visit to The High Line back in October? Although it was quite chilly, here's the spring version. I still think is one of the best urbanization project.

The Weekender

Inspiring art project



Plans for the weekend? We have some birthday parties to attend, a new musical show at The New Victory Theater to go to (Lucky Duck) but, mostly, we need to recover from our week.

Have a great weekend!

Hello Spring!!

New York today - gorgeous!!

Although outside it definitely feels like spring in New York, here at home it doesn't quite feel like it yet. The trees are blossoming, the weather is warming, the days are longer and... P is sick. Nothing to worry about, he just caught a very bad cold (probably from the temperature swings we've been having lately). 

However, after three days confined at home, we managed to put our little noses outside today just for a little while, to breadth some fresh air and pay a visit to the pediatrician. The day is absolutely gorgeous, the streets are cheerful and sunny. 

We've definitely had one of the best winters ever. Nonetheless, spring is always and will always be more than welcomed.  

Exhibition of Sempé in Paris

Picture credits: © J.-J. Sempé, Sempé à New York, Éditions Denoël / Éditions Martine Gossieaux

If you are one of the lucky ones to be in Paris now, you should definitely consider going to the Hôtel de Ville, to take a look at Jean-Jacques Sempé's exhibition. The "Sempé: a Bit of Paris" exhibit reunites more than 300 drawings, along with texts by the author. It goes until March 31st and it's free.

Books of the week - Eric Carle

I have to confess that before having kids I didn't know who Eric Carle was. I vaguely remembered from my childhood the images of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I think that I had never read the book. Given that here in the U.S., it seems that every household has to have a copy, I bought one for F when he was still a baby. The pictures are beautiful, but the story didn't really convince me and F just ignored it. We had also received, when he was born, the famous Polar bear, Polar bear, what do you hear?, which was definitely more appropriate for his age.

Recently, the kids rediscovered The Very Hungry Caterpillar and I've actually started to understand why, besides the pictures, the book was so appealing to young readers. It plays with repetition and very simple concepts. Two things that children like. Nowadays both F and P are big fans of the book. Not only they loved the book but they wanted some more from Eric Carle for their collection. I recently took them, on different occasions, to bookstores and to my surprise they both chose books from the author. So we now also have The Very Busy Spider and The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse. The latter has astonishing illustrations.

Making Art while walking

Top picture by Simon Beck; Bottom picture by Andres Amador

In the past couple of weeks I came across the work of two artists that use their feet to make beautiful drawings on the ground. The first one is Simon Beck who uses snow as his medium. And the second one is Andres Amador, who draws on sand.

Both artists are incredibly talented. The resulting art works are amazing. Here are some examples of what they have both achieved.

By Simon Beck

By Andres Amador

The Weekender - MiniLook Kiev

MiniLook Kiev from threeshot on Vimeo.

I found this video adorable. I didn't know that Kiev was so bright and colorful. It made me want to go there and visit. 

Spring is around the corner, so New York is also starting to feel bright and colorful as well. 

Have a cheerful weekend!

Play with your imagination

F loves to listen to stories while he's having dinner, but not any kind of stories. It started more than a year ago and, at the beginning, I would tell him well-known stories, like The Three Little Pigs or Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But he soon started to ask me to invent "out-of-my-head", like he likes to say, fantastic stories. 

Usually, the characters are: himself (as the hero, obviously), his brother, friends from school, his cousins, a big bad wolf, dragons and witches (we have a good one and a very bad one). It's a lot of fun. However, I must confess, that when you need to invent a different story each day, one more extravagant than the other, with very complicated plots, it soon may become a headache to invent such stories. 

One day, I spotted the Tell me a Story card game from Eeboo and I immediately bought it. I thought it would save me from my crazy stories at dinner time. Well, it didn't. On the other hand, it saved me from long and boring winter afternoons at home. The cards come without any text, just images. So you have to create the stories. There are various ways to play with them and you can even create your own rules. 

The instructions that come with the deck give three suggestions: 1) put some cards together and make-up a story; 2) ask your child to create a story using one of the cards and then adding some other cards to the plot; 3) the Silly Story Game (for 2 or more players), in which the youngest player draws a card and starts a story based on the illustration, subsequently the players take turns drawing cards and continuing the initial story, always based on the illustrations. The result can be completely non-sense but is certainly hilarious.

Our favorite one, and actually the only one we've been playing lately, is the third version. It's a great entertainment. It challenges our imagination, creativity and our storytelling abilities. And I'm always so impressed with F's imagination and how he manages to link one card with another in order to make a somewhat coherent story. 

Cooking with kids - Chocolate covered strawberries

This is an easy, easy, easy recipe to do with kids. It's entertaining and no time consuming. You just need some fresh strawberries, semi-sweet chocolate and that's it.

Yesterday evening, the kids where a bit agitated, but it was too early to send them to bed. So we decided to cook. However, it was too late to make anything fancy, thus the idea of making some chocolate covered strawberries. We just had 8 beautiful and big strawberries left. We used about 120g or 4oz of bitter-sweet chocolate, some lollipop sticks to make it easier and that's it. 

While the chocolate was melting in a double-boiler, at medium heat, I cleaned the strawberries. Then the kids helped me insert the lollipop sticks. We let the chocolate melt completely, stirring occasionally. Once it was ready, since I was afraid the kids would burn themselves with the hot pan, I put some chocolate on a big spoon so they could dip the strawberries in.

We placed our treats in the refrigerator and thirty minutes later, voilà, we had delicious chocolate covered strawberries. 

Books of the week - Operation Alphabet

A few weeks ago, we went to a story time in which the English writer Al MacCuish would be reading his new book The Ministry of Letters: Operation Alphabet. The story is original and funny. So, of course, we bought the book and we were lucky to have it dedicated. The nice thing about hearing the author of a book, is that they give you the rhythm of the story. In addition, given that the authors usually have a sentimental attachment to their books, I noticed that they usually read them with a lot of enthusiasm.

Given that the story is somewhat long, that there is a fair amount of text in each page and that the theme is the Alphabet, I would recommend the book for children aged at least four or five years-old. Here at home, F stays hooked up the whole time, but P, after the first two pages, is usually wandering around the room. 

The book also has a very nice website, with more information about the story, the author, the illustrator (Luciano Lozano) and some extra material for the kids.

MoMA with kids - Tours for Fours

Henri Matisse. The Red Studio. Issy-les-Moulineaux, fall 1911. Oil on canvas, 71 1/4" x 7' 2 1/4" (181 x 219.1 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund

Saturday morning we tried one of the tours offered by the MoMA for young visitors - Tours for Four. They have two Family Programs: one for children aged four and another one for children between 5 and 10.

The tours are for free and they are organized by subject. The one that we went, for example, was about "places". Our guide gave us a small introduction of what we were about to see and then took us to one of the galleries in the museum to observe three different paintings. In front of each painting, she asked the same question to the kids: if we were looking at a place inside or outside. It was really interesting and funny to hear the comments.

The tours take approximately 50 minutes, which, I found, a little bit long for young children (especially for my hyperactive son). Nonetheless, it was well organized, interesting and a nice way to introduce children to art and, more importantly, to teach them how to observe and learn to interpret an art work.

P.S.: I forgot to mention that the entrance to the museum is free when you go to one of the tours and, at the end, you will receive a Family pass to come back to the MoMA with your family on another day, for free. This is pretty sweet, considering that each ticket cost US$20.

The Weekender

Can't believe the week is already over!

All our weekends for the month of March are booked with birthday parties. Which means, that all these kids were conceived between the months of June and July (beginning of summer in the Northern hemisphere). Which actually makes a lot of sense.
Oh, it was summer. The days were nice and warm. The parents were probably on vacation and they got very flirty. 

Have a nice weekend!

Happy Women's Day

This is for all the wonderful women that bring so much joy into my life. Thank you for making my days better and share the good and bad moments with me.
Happy, happy, happy day for all of us!

Shadow puppet show

If you've been following me for some time now, you probably know that we like anything related to puppets here at home. So, here's our newest show: shadow theatre. Although, at the beginning, it was hard to coordinate everything and to keep the kids far from the wall so that we could create some shadows, they really had a blast.

Our shadow puppets are from Moulin Roty, a very nice French brand, specialized in high-quality products for children (i.e. wood toys, educational toys). I really like the ones we bought, however I think it's probably very easy to make simple ones at home.

Books of the week: Bringing up Bébé

If you live in the U.S., you have probably heard about this new book Bringing up Bébé: one American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, by Pamela Druckerman. Lately, it was very well publicized and is in the mouth of almost every mom around me. So, after the Tiger moms, here come the French moms as role models. 

I bought it out of curiosity and just finished reading it. What I can say is that is very entertaining and well written. However what Pamela Druckerman presents as being rocket science for her, it appeared to me as being pretty much common sense. Maybe I'm more French than I thought, given that I recognized myself in many situations of the book and that I handle certain "problems" or educational matters in the same way that French mothers seem to handle them.

I don't think American mothers are bad mothers and I also don't think that Pamela Druckerman implies this in her book. I live in New York and I see mothers struggling with the same problems as any other mothers in the world and handling the situation as well as Europeans, Asians or South-Americans, to name a few. People often ask me if it was easier to take care of my kids while we were in Brazil, because of all the help we had there. I'm lucky enough to have someone to help me here in New York as well, but to tell you the truth, my life as a mother of two hasn't changed much. The problems are the same and the workload is the same. If a mother takes her role seriously,  a mother is simply a mother, with all the responsibilities that this title comes with, no matter where she lives. 

The main difference that I've noticed, and that I totally agree with Pamela, is the relationship that Americans have with good manners and with food compared to French people or even most of other cultures in the world. In France, eating well and having good manners is a very big deal (as is in my house). Whereas here in the U.S., I feel that food is just seen as a survival thing and good manners will come later in life. People don't necessarily eat for pleasure, but they eat because they have to and they end up having very bad eating habits. Also, children are easily forgiven bad behaviors because this is what they are, just children.  

During my first year here, as a student, I was extremely shocked by seeing other students, as well as professors, eating during classes, or people eating while walking on the street. Later on, when I started working, I was actually disgusted by this habit of not having a proper lunch time. I just couldn't believe that all these well-educated persons with whom I was working, in a prestigious European bank, would eat lunch in front of their computers. Nowadays, I just don't agree with the way parents here educate their kids to eat. However, I understand that it is a cultural trace that I won't change and will never understand. At home we just do it the European way. The other day a friend of F was eating pasta with his hands (he completely ignored the fork that I had placed in front of him), so once he left, I simply explained to F that, in our house, this is not the way we like to eat and that I liked him to always eat with his fork, even at the other persons houses. 

I think that American moms are maybe a little bit too nervous and overprotective with their children, but I've seen this in other places as well. Besides, I think that all cultures have their own neurosis. And, yes, people tend to overload kids with extracurricular activities, however (Pamela hasn't reached that stage yet), education in France is far from being stressless. I still remember the amount of workload we had over weekends, vacations, school days when I was studying at the French school. Not to mention the pressure that a lot of parents put on their kids to finish high school with honors, so that they can be accepted to the best prépas, so that, later on, they can go to one of the few prestigious Grandes Écoles. Otherwise, they are doomed for life. 

I personally don't agree with Pamela when she says that French mothers are always calm and composed while educating their children. I think that, as any other mothers in this world, they have their bad moments. Actually, I don't remember my French friend's mothers (or teachers) as calm as they are described in the book. Maybe this has changed over the past 10 or 15 years (I have my doubts). I agree with her, though, that children are not the center of attention in France as they are here or in Latin America and that in France they are already seen as "persons" very early on, so they actually need to behave likewise. And I personally think that this makes sense. I've always been the first one to justify the bad behavior of my kids by saying that they are just children. Nonetheless, I know that this is the easy way out and that I should actually educate them not to behave like that (but, sometimes, mothers do get tired and need a break).

Finally, as it happens with many foreigners (myself totally included here), you end up absorbing some of the cultural traces of the place you live in. Out of my personal experience, what I noticed is that before having children, you don't necessarily need to live or do the same things as the locals. However, once you have children, you get more involved with the local culture (through other parents, at the playgrounds, birthday parties and mainly at school) and you start to make comparisons with your own culture. The good part is that you can actually choose what you think works fine for your family or not and teach that to your kids. F was born here in the U.S. and P in Brazil. I can truly say that I didn't do the same things with both of them. In part because when P was born I was a little bit more experienced as a mother, but mostly because I was living in different countries, with very different cultures.  

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I liked the book because I thought it was entertaining and also interesting. While reading it, the impression that I had is that Pamela Druckerman wrote this book just to compare her culture to the one she has to deal with in her daily life (with the pros and cons). Yet, in some parts it feels like another "how to do it" book. I really don't think that American mothers are as bad as they appear to be lately. In fact, some of the most brilliant minds come from here, so they are definitely doing something very good. Apart from food (I think that the best restaurants are still in France), new ideas, revolutionary businesses or big scientific discoveries don't seem to come from France anymore. As a matter of fact, French culture is somewhat in decadence. What I do feel is that sometimes American mothers are too worry to see if they are following everything by the rule and forget to follow their gut feelings and to enjoy their kids while they are young. 

How do you carry your iPad?

Recently my iPad has become my babysitter. On weekend mornings, F comes quietly to my room and asks me if he can take the iPad. To which I obviously agree in a very sleepy voice. I'm not very proud of this, but really, what other choice do I have at 7am, if I don't want to wake up yet? 

Back in his bedroom, F goes into P's crib and they stay both of them playing quietly with the iPad. This new weekend-morning-dynamic gives me an extra 30 to 60 minutes of sleep, which is, believe me, absolutely priceless. 

Here are some iPad cases ideas:

Patterned DODOcase for J.Crew

Poketo Envelope iPad Case

Poketo Three Dots iPad Case

Hermes iPad case (the case is much more expensive than the iPad - how ironic is that?!)

The Weekender: Sushi anyone?

The Story of Sushi from Bamboo Sushi on Vimeo.

I found this video so interesting. Can you believe that all the miniatures were handmade? I also think the message is worth sharing, especially if you like to eat sushi like me.

What are you up to this weekend? For who's interested, there is another Lolli-pop concert on Saturday and Sunday.

Have a great weekend!

Minha mãe que disse - NY com crianças, fugindo do óbvio

For my Portuguese speaking readers: I've written a post, that was published today, for the super cool Brazilian website Minha mãe que disse.
The post is about tips of what to do/see in New York while visiting with young children, escaping a little bit from the traditional tourist guides.