Dear Vivienne,

Wow! a lot of time has passed since we met in Isham Park. many apologies – i hope you still remember me!  i told your mom ive been meaning to write you all these days, but my family has had a lot of excitement over the last few weeks. today is the first morning that i have been able to sit down and read the Manhattan Times article you were in about the Scribbles Art Program at Bread and Yoga. i know how proud you and your mom must feel about being written about in an article in a newspaper. that’s really big deal for such a talented six year old!

we have been hoping to see you and your mom at the Sunday Hoop Jams so i can share our big news in person, but hopefully mama is reading this to you and maybe you can make it one of these days…

here is our big news: my son, Ryan, was accepted to go to a summer program at a music school that he really loves. our friends & family have been making handmade hula hoops to sell to neighborhood kids (and grownups!) to help him pay for his trip there. remember when we met that day and we had all those pretty color tapes and we were making designs on the hula hoops? well since we’ve seen you last we’ve sold almost 100 of them! can you imagine? that is a LOT OF HULA HOOPS in 14 short days!

and guess what? Ryan’s Inwood Hoops project has also made it into a few online articles, a blog and a newsletter because hooping is really great exercise, so just like your mom i am a super proud mom as well!

i am going to talk to Ryan this week and maybe we can have a few Hoop Jams at Isham Park, too, so that you and your friends can come hoop with us. it’s okay if you don’t have a hula hoop. you can borrow one of ours – we have a lot of them to share during Hoop Jams. and we also play dance music and it makes hooping with friends so much more fun. as a matter of fact, maybe your mom would like to come and try hooping with other grownups on Wednesday nights so she can practice before the Hoop Jams?

do you remember our baby twins? our boy is Gabriel and our girl is Stella. the twins had their first birthday last week and Stella is almost walking. hopefully when we see you next you can help her not fall so much. =)

see you soon!

big hugs,

Zaida

(my name is pronounced ZAY-duh, but if you don’t remember just call me Saidy. it’s a nickname i was given as a little girl.)

Community: Inwood Shines Bright!

Send us camera phone pictures of your Christmas & New Years to –> InwoodShinesBright@gmail.com

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UPDATE: Inwood Shines Bright! is mentioned not once but TWICE in this week’s Manhattan Times!! Check out the cover story “Lighting Up Northern Manhattan” and my favorite – the Shhhh! section.

UPDATE 2: Check out our community project in the Examiner!  “Inwood Shines Bright: Northern Manhattan revives an old Christmas tradition”

Our friends and neighbors are decorating their windows, and bringing that old holiday spirit back to our streets once again. Send me your photos and we’ll show off our ‘hood to the world.

Also, f you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #InwoodShinesBright or #ISB so that I can retweet you.

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!

We live in THE BEST neighborhood in all of Manhattan – HAND’S DOWN.

We launched a brand new community project called Inwood Shines Bright! which asks neighbors to bring back old Inwood traditions and make them new again.

10034 is changing at a rapid fire pace, but we can still keep the old flames alive – the ones that brought us here to begin with.

read more about Inwood Shines Bright! on our header page, and what you can do to make our neighborhood a much brighter place this Holiday season.

our community is our family, and like most things in life we cant do it alone. we want to thank the following people for helping out  behind the scenes on such short notice:

Lyana of Latinos For Obama, Claudio of Live Above Mediocrity blog, and Jose of Joyful Addition blog.

also a special thanks everyone who has retweeted and helped spread the word.  we will be posting flyers around the neighborhood this week to reach to those not yet a part of our amazing online blogging community.

we can’t wait to see your pictures – send them in soon!

DPC Day 6: Celebrating Pajama Day

The twins slept most of the day so we decided that all of us would stay in pajamas. The first picture is one with all three of my children – including my eldest, Ryan, who will be turning 16 in two weeks.  Ryan doesn’t get a lot of press around here, because like most teenagers he thinks his parents are uncool and quite obviously don’t understand him.  Because after 16 years we suddenly have no idea what we are talking about.  We try to embarrass him as little as possible by respecting his privacy, but today must have been a full moon because he actually agreed to do me the honor of his presence and sit for a photo with the babies

ONLY FOR THIS PROJECT.

Listen, I’ll take what I can get.

So, here is our Pajama Day. I would have jumped in if only I wasnt braless in a wife beater and beat up gap boxer shorts. Ok, I’ll be straight up: I didn’t shave my legs. Hell I dont even have time to shower every day so I’m pretty surprised I’ve kept with this thing 6 days in a row. Oh yea, fine, I was late with yesterdays pic, but it’s up.

Bite me.

Please note Ryan’s Guitar Hero PJs. In 20 years this will be a classic.

Stella is in brown & Gabriel is in white (his third change of the day, BTW. The boy can pee like nobody’s business.)

Below is a picture of Gabriel, very obviously wiped out by today’s strenuous excercise. He looks pretty harmless here, but Gabe is the one we need to watch out for. There is nothing that passes little man unnoticed, just like his Poppa. Sneaky little thing, I tell ya.

Our bouncing baby crack head:

Check out the video to see what I mean.

Sorry for the crappy quality and hokey music. Our itunes library is empty, and I was too tired to upload a song so just added something that came in the program.  My husband is buying me a new Flip for holiday. These days are too cherished to have shitty videos all the time.

The Heights & Inwood: Good, local history

this story was posted on a parents group this morning, and i wanted to reprint in full as it was incredibly inspiring to me on this dreary Monday morning:

You may (or may not) have noticed that each of the elevators now has one poster with a gray background, and that that poster is done by a local artist. There’s a story behind this, a story of a tenacious, community-minded woman.

Years ago, one of the elevators at the 183rd St entrance to the A train was decorated with dozens of photos of local residents, holiday lights at appropriate times of year, and music. This was the work of Bruce, one of the operators. The friendly, eclectic décor inspired newspaper articles both here and abroad. Then the MTA decided it was all a fire hazard, and possibly a violation of peoples’ privacy, everything was removed.

The community banded together to get the decorations reinstated, signing petitions and staging a protest march at the train station. (Marching around with placards and chanting is one of my kids’ earliest memories; they periodically re-enact the scene when I come up with a new schedule of chores!) The MTA was intransigent. However, Rosa Naparstek, working together with Artists Unite, was determined to keep a community feel within the elevators. With perseverence and dozens upon dozens of meetings with the MTA, slowly but surely progress was made.

The exhibit that documents this eight-year battle is titled “Going Up! The Art in Your Subway Elevator and the Story of How it Got There”. It opens at Hebrew Tabernacle (on the northern side of Bennett Park @ Ft Washington) on Sunday, Nov 29, with a reception from 2-6pm. Additional hours are Monday, Nov 30 and Wed, Dec 2 (9am-6:30pm), Sat, Dec 5 (7-9pm) and Sun, Dec 6 (10am-1pm)

It’s a great story, well worth your time. And Rosa… well, Rosa is someone worth meeting. She’s certainly taught me a thing or two about what it means to be determined!

Julia

god, i love my ‘hood.

Head on back to Manhattan's Peak

the chiclets are here, so back to my old blog.

join me there for baby updates and the rest of it…

http://manhattanspeak.wordpress.com

xoxox
z

Gabriel & Stella, New Beginnings

today was our “official” due date.

today is the first time i started to feel like my old pre-pregnant self.

today was the first time both babes took the pacifier without spitting it out.

today was the first time i put the babes in their real crib, instead of their packnplay, and let them listen to classical music, awake, while i walked away and made myself a much deserved cup of bustello coffee.

today was the first time i let hunter give them both a kiss.

today ryan helped without any complaints.

today, our neighbor, made us a batch of the most amazing desserts – so completely unexpected, i cried over her thoughtfulness and generosity.

today my uterus doesnt hurt nearly as much as it did the last 10 days.

today the swelling in my feet has gone down significantly.

today was the first time i made out with my husband in weeks.

today ive decided it’s time to move on from this blog now that this pregnancy is over and the chiclets are here.

today is not the end, it’s just our new beginning.

Thank you!!!

i cant even begin to thank you enough for all the love and support throughout our pregnancy and delivery. if i could give you all bear hugs, you would not be able to breathe!  this blog has been such a great outlet for me, and i will continue to share our stories as we relive the first years of mommyhood all over again.  your feedback, advice & encouragement have really helped me, especially when i was feeling a bit down, unsure and blue. since the twins arrival ive spent little time on the computer because im so in love i just dont want to do anything else but hold them.  i had forgotten how short lived these first days are, and i want to take advantage of every single second i have to bond with them.   i’ll probably post more vids or pics instead of written diary posts just because of the time element – but i just wanted to say THANK YOU ALL again for helping to keep my head up, and for the virtual hugs you have all provided long after i’ve stopped typing and turned off the screen.

our naming ceremony & bris will take place friday afternoon, and we will be sharing the names of our little ones by friday evening.  just one more thing for us to look forward to…

xoxo,

z

Birth Stories

We are over the moon about the birth of our little chiclets on Friday, 4/10/09.   Just got home from the hospital last night, and while we have so many stories to tell, our little boy and girl have way too much going on for mama to spend any more than 5 mins behind a computer screen each day…

after a very long night, i rolled off the sofa this morning (my new bed) grabbed the flip video and hit record. both parts about 8 minutes long, so be warned.

birth story part 1

birth story part 2

tweeting on twitter is sporadic but once i get the hang of this again, times two, we should be back on schedule as usual.

xoxox
z

Thoughts from a soon to be Papa…

So here we are all the way from asking my dear fiance a few days before our wedding “what the fuck are you talking about?” as she is jumping up and down while waking me up, to sitting in my boxers and a t-shirt in the living room at 6 AM ready to take one last run to labor and delivery and my how my world has changed.

I will no longer be one of the most… ok, the second most important person in my life.  I will now be running a distant fifth.  My dog will no longer be my surrogate child (even though I totally swaddled him when taking him home from the hospital yesterday.  Long story.)  He will now have to be satisfied with being our family pet.

I think I understand how my father felt the day his life changed and I can only hope that I can provide a fraction of the childhood experiences that he was able to.  Life is no longer the same and all I can say is that I am excited to see how everything changes and what directions we will be pulled in.

(soon to be) Papa

Last post while preggers…

today’s cancer horoscope:

The Four of Wands (reversed)

Celebrate or take a holiday! As long as your foundation is solid, and you are not committing to a relationship, position, partnership or change in role or status out of a sense of duty, or to satisfy others who have expectations for you, this card is one of the most positive in the deck. If you are contemplating marriage, children, a business deal, moving, or laying the groundwork for a great vision, go for it! By working as a team, you will prosper and reap the rewards of your past efforts. Let yourself be free from limitation and open to new possibilities. Be prepared to act spontaneously, expect to be thrilled, and claim your joy in living! Don’t try too hard to contain yourself, for this will be one of the highlights of your life. Be happy for yourself, but know that you will still have more potential to develop further, so try to see beyond the moment.

ok, im ready.