this photo is a few weeks old, but in searching for an image for this post, i realized that those on flickr are sort of old news and found this one waiting in the wings on my phone. it was taken at the closest playground to  our apartment that was not destroyed by a tornado--it's about a 10-15 (hard to gauge these things nowadays) walk from us. this is alden playing floor chimes with a buddy. he's still to lightweight to get the blocks to chime on his own, but now he's more motivated than ever to figure out how to jump.

the internet and universe are probably really tired of hearing me say this, but i am so heartbroken over the (hopefully very temporary) loss of our playground. not being able to just hop over to the park for a few minutes in the morning, afternoon, whenever has definitely dampened my spirits, but i'm trying not to let my being bummed about it affect als. he asks to go to the park, so we get on the train and play at mccarren, which is fine, but it takes some of the spontaneity out of the whole venture to have to pack an enormous bag every time he needs to run around a bit.

a few weeks ago, we visited a farm in queens with some friends. did i mention it? i should have, but i know i've been a super lazy blogger lately. anyway, alden had a great time and i was proud to witness him cluck at the chickens, after having only read about them in books. he also enjoyed exploring the little paths and roads around the farm, sampling cherries off the ground (i fished them out of his mouth) and walking as far away from me as possible. it made me really happy to see that als definitely has his papa's love of walking around in nature, but then of course, i felt a twinge of sadness thinking that maybe we were being unfair to him, living in the city. but! he has fun here too, even if we do have to take the train to play anywhere near trees. and even if the soil around those trees is too filled with broken glass, bottle caps and mysterious tiny baggies to be allowed to dig in it.

there is a new indoor play space in greenpoint that i've heard good things about. before our playground was shuttered,  i imagined we'd spend maybe a few days there this winter, now i'm thinking we might become regulars.