Waking up to the street sounds of New York, snuggling Lu as she slept between me and Jason in the king-size bed (pretty comfortably, as we are not big people), I thought, this is life for city people. I sat up to the crash of a dumpster being emptied and surveyed the hotel room, flannels and plaids and industrial fixtures cast in a little strip of dawn that made it decidedly less romantic than in the hipster dark. I thought, my god, this would be our apartment — where would we even put Milo? Lu, charmingly exhausted, continued to sleep while we stirred. We finally got her moving with the promise of pancakes and a "fancy dress show." After breakfast at Penelope, Lucy and I went to the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met (thanks to Meg and Grandma Susie for the recommendation!), for which I'd bought the special "Mondays at the Met" tickets when the rest of the museum is closed.
The retrospective was exquisite: one of the most dramatic and interesting things I've ever seen at a museum. Lu was less impressed. At one point, she partially lay down in the exhibit, clutching a phantom pain in her side that seemed to correlate strongly with boredom, exclaiming, "I can't go on." (Dear serious museum patrons who paid $50 a head for the private ticket to the McQueen exhibit, I am sorry. You should talk to the management about instituting some kind of culture stamina quiz so this kind of seven-year-old riffraff doesn't get in.) When we got to the end, she wanted to go back to see a few more things, like "the dress that looked like seaweed" and "that red one with the feathers." She did like it, but if I'd wanted the full experience, I'd have gone with Meg or Grandma Susie: alas, Lu did her best.
The rest of the day was magic with Dad: FAO Schwarz and chocolate and a nap in the king-size bed. When I met up with them later, she was even a good sport about eating at Momofuku, the land of much strange and wonderful food.