Little Pun'kin Meets the Big Apple

What to do when you want to see all of New York City with GrandBoy in tow, but the temperature outside is 100+? Baby safety and comfort are priorities #1 and #2, of course, so among the three of us (Ma, Pa, GrandMary) we had to come up with a few workable options to keep the little one calm, cool, and collected.

• Stroller hood blocking sun. Check.
• Hat for Babe. Check.
• Baby sunscreen (applied every 30 seconds or so). Check.
• Burp cloth soaked in cold water + witch hazel (to wrap around Babe's neck, wipe him down, or cover his legs. Check.
• Spritz bottle filled with cold water to spray him down. Check.
• Pulling into any available heavily air-conditioned establishment every 20 minutes. Check.

OK. So that plan of attack worked pretty well, actually. The only thing that had us stumped for a while was the spritz bottle. We went into 7-8 stores - Duane Reade, Walgreens, KMart (yes, there's a KMart at Astor Place in NYC), beauty supply shops - to no avail. Finally found one at the Duane Reade on 6th Avenue (Ave of the Americas to you turistas) around 44th. Who'd a' thunk? Must've been a run on spritz bottles in the heat, but we're glad we had it as we traveled about.

And Liam survived the whole thing very well, mainly by power-napping and power-eating. Which is the way most people handle New York City, by the way. He survived the subways and buses. He survived Midtown, Times Square, Union Square, Chinatown, SoHo, Lower Manhattan, Little Italy, and my digs in Spanish Harlem.

As his GrandMary and NYC Tour Guide, I declare GrandBoy's first trip to New York City a whopping success. I hope the next time he comes the weather will be a little more temperate so that we can stroll through Central Park and walk the Brooklyn Bridge. But this was a good start.

And he was the cutest Little Pun'kin that the Big Apple had ever seen.