Last updated on August 24th, 2023 at 06:42 pm
As I write this piece, my husband, my twins and I are getting ready to relocate from the “big city” to the suburbs. I am so happy we lived here when we did. It was a short stint, but I got to experience the end of pregnancy and the first 16 months of my children’s lives in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Maybe this is the best time to be in this neighborhood — maybe we got The Best of Park Slope — I don’t know. But what I found here was just what I needed.
We moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan before the babies were born. We came for a visit while I was pregnant to survey the landscape and all we saw were the beautiful brownstones, gorgeous trees, Prospect Park full of families, countless playgrounds, and hordes of strollers being pushed down the sidewalk. We said, “Let’s do it. Let’s move here instead of the burbs.”
Not knowing anything about having a baby, let alone twins, we chose a 3rd floor walk-up with a stoop on a busy (non-tree-lined) street because it was the largest apartment I saw in our price range. We got a heavy double stroller. I went to a breast feeding class to learn about twin latching (double football all the way.) When I ended up on bed rest, I did everything virtually: joined all the mommy listservs, researched baby wearing, found mommy & me yoga classes.
The babies were born at 34 weeks and 1 day. My girl spent 7 days in the NICU and my boy came straight to the antepartum unit with me. We were all home a week after delivery… and suddenly we were a family of four, with two very tiny babies, living with no car in a 3rd floor walk-up in a big city.
The first time I got out of the house with the babies by myself, they were 5 weeks old. It was complicated. I moved them down the stairs to the lobby one at a time in their car seats, set up our double stroller on the sidewalk, then moved them down one at a time to the stroller. The whole process took about 30 minutes. When I closed the front gate and realized I had completed the maneuver successfully, I literally jumped up and down on the sidewalk.
That first day out was a busy one. First I met other mommies from my mommy listserv at a cafe. Then I took the babies to a breast feeding support group in a yoga studio where I nursed for an hour. Then I walked so they could nap in the stroller (a tactic I later came to call “sleep walking”, ha!) and we visited a friend in her apartment (she had an elevator!) and nursed them there for another hour. Then another sleep walk. Then home (and more nursing). Five hours out of the house, just the three of us.
It was just the beginning.
Having this group motivated me to get out of the house. I started organizing weekly walks in the park with moms on the list. We would meet in groups of 10-20 moms and take hour long walks, a huge flock of strollers. Someone organized a weekly stay at home mom play group. Emails flew back and forth at 3am about nursing, swaddling, family, whatever. We became a real herd, a small family — never really alone. At my first meeting at the cafe I offered to watch someone’s baby so she could go to the bathroom. That’s how it was: instafriends.
Winter was busy with weekly cafe meet-ups, almost weekly walks, and a weekly play group. One time the park ranger drove up behind us in her jeep and shouted on the bull horn for us to move over and make room for cars.
Then Spring and Summer came, with play groups and picnics in the park almost every single day. Sometimes, if I didn’t have a play date, I’d just go to the park with the kids and put our picnic blanket near the pedestrian path; inevitably someone I knew would come walking along and we would play. With free play days at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, free kids music at the Brooklyn Library, the beautiful Prospect Park, and the swings and sprinklers at the public play grounds, there was so much to do every day without spending much money.
Urban twin life is pretty great, I have to say, and I am sad to leave it. Yes, there are some major challenges: besides the expense, it’s a real challenge getting in and out of the house, or riding public transportation. But almost everything is in walking distance, anyway. Groceries (and basically anything!) can be delivered. Not being in a car means the kids can sleep while I walk, go to a cafe, walk again, all without taking them out of the stroller. When they started reliably sleeping through the night, my husband and I could leave the baby monitor with our downstairs neighbors (who we are very close with) and sneak out for an hour or two for a drink or for ice cream across the street.
This neighborhood is especially kid friendly. Many of the ordinary cafes have kids’ singalongs that cost $5 per family, so every day there is somewhere to go for music or puppet shows or arts and crafts. Some of the bars have Stroller Happy Hours, where the bartenders can recommend a delicious lactation-supporting beer for you and there are changing tables in the bathroom.
I am sad to be leaving Brooklyn, for sure. But don’t worry, I’ve already signed us up for a week’s worth of play dates, classes, and story times in the burbs. Here’s hoping they’re just as fun (and maybe not quite as crowded).
Robin Sheldon is an artist and therapist, currently staying at home full time with her big kid twins, new baby, and two cats while her husband hunts and gathers. According to her children, her job is making breakfast and packing lunches, what makes her happy is hugs, and her favorite food is cookies. Pretty accurate!
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