a taste of the suburbs

Caleb devoted a good amount of energy last week to begging to go for a ride in the car. He used the same soft, whiny voice he uses to tell me he's hungry, which is always difficult to resist. And so on Saturday we piled into our 4-wheeled novelty and hit the road. We headed east, to Long Island, partly because we were already familiar with the roads (we take that route to go both to church and to the airport), and partly because there were no tolls.

In addition to the thrill of a car ride, at my request we also ran a few errands. First up was a Target located about an hour away from our house. Now, I'm unspeakably pleased to have relatively easy access to my inner-city Target, but oh, how I adore a Target in the suburbs. On this visit we took the rare opportunity to buy big items -- toilet paper and family-sized bags of Malt-o-Meal cereal -- that I can't buy at our Brooklyn Target for the sole reason that I can't realistically haul them home.

Afterward, we drove a few more miles to a nearby JoAnn Fabric -- the closest one to us that didn't require a toll. ($13 to cross the Verrazano Bridge to get to the one only five miles away in Staten Island?! I don't think so. To date I've still never been to the one at this location because even without a car and the accompanying ridiculous toll it would require a 2-hour bus ride to get there. So close, yet so far away, which is why a visit to JoAnn is kind of exciting.) My mission there was to find and purchase fabric to make a baby quilt for Number 3. It was a frazzling experience, as any Saturday afternoon trip to a fabric store with three boys in tow is wont to be, but we came away with some great stuff. Want a sneak peak?


Would you believe me if I told you that Blake was responsible for most of what we came away with? Because he was. Apparently he has a hidden talent for finding coordinating fabric.

I'm planning to make a strip quilt (something akin to this one), and since I pre-washed the fabric this morning, I could technically get started any time. I don't know that I will, though. With the exception of the realization that at some point I will have to get ready for the arrival of this baby, my overwhelming exhaustion is not yet being ignored by a desire to nest.

We wrapped up our visit to the suburbs with ice cream from Friendly's. It was gloriously messy, and even though we, and the boys in particular, were tired, there was more laughter at our table than tears.

To even further the deliciousness of our taste of the suburbs, when we got back to Brooklyn, there was a parking spot waiting for us right in front of our building. It was as if, for a brief moment, we had our very own driveway.

Someday.

Someday.