On Tidying Up

One of the gifts I received for my birthday was a selection of new books. One of them, this. I had heard so much about it, and I have to say that just by owning it, I’ve been inspired to get rid of my clutter. I’ve read about half way through it, and these are the two things that stood out to me so far. 1. Does this item spark joy? If not, get rid of it. 2. Don’t feel guilty to get rid of stuff. That Christmas card you received 2 years ago? It’s fulfilled its purpose in making you feel thought of and special in the moment you received it. That was the purpose of the card, not to sit in your drawer for many years to come. Same with that gift you received and never used. It was supposed to make you feel something in the moment you received it, and no gift giver would want you to keep something out of a sense of obligation, even though you have no use for it.

Living in a Brooklyn apartment, we have very limited space to store things, and come to think of it, to live in. So we constantly re-evaulate what we keep and use, but not enough.

Yesterday we didn’t have any plans, and after a morning of playing and errand running with the boys, I got busy. I started with our bedroom and sorted through our closet and drawers. The first thing I did was to get rid off every single wire hanger. During that process I handled so many items and got rid of so much. A giant garbage bag filled with clothes to give away. I re-folded everything.

Then I moved on to the kids’ art, puzzle and game cabinets. I went through all the art supplies and discarded dried up markers and stuff I bought or was given and never used. The thing is, if you haven’t used it until now, you never will. It’s such a liberating thing to get rid of stuff.

And then, for the grand finale of the day, I went through a cabinet of “Frauke stuff.” Old letters, photos, Christmas cards, thank you cards to my children from friends they no longer remember, lots of old bank statements and paper, paper, and more paper. Two giant bags full of paper things. It was so freeing. And I was so happy to find quite a few gems. Such as this! Did this spark joy when I saw it? Definitely yes. It’s a keeper.

Anyway, this is probably a boring read for anyone who isn’t me, but it was such a freeing and empowering process, and I am not done yet. There are more projects to tackle and more stuff to get rid off. Maybe 2016 will be the year of living clutter-free?

Decembering……

I’ve been absent here for a little while because we’ve been busy. And also really enjoying this month of holiday bliss. Julian comes home from school with crafted ornaments for our tree. The boys love our tree. Almost every morning Julian will say, “Papa, I just love our star up high.”

We’ve been a mix of very lazy and super busy. Some days we don’t get out of our pajamas. We’ve been listening to lots of Christmas music, drinking hot cocoa and baking cookies. Every morning the boys are excited to open another little gift from their advent calendars. We’ve sent our Christmas cards, colored a lot, and been generally happy to be around each other. Jeff, sadly, is working non-stop (weekends and nights), so we haven’t seen much of him, and when we do see him, the boys flip out because they are so excited and that quickly becomes exhausting.

I took Julian to his first play last weekend. He and I went out for lunch. It was so calm and lovely to sit down with him and talk over a hamburger, a beer, pancakes, and OJ. We played rock/paper/scissors. He is such a cool little person; I totally don’t get tired of him (except sometimes when I do). The play, Snow White, was fantastic. Julian and his buddy Elliot had a great time and some good laughs. I can’t wait to take him again.

Everyone is healthy for now. Arthur has been fine for almost a week now! Longest streak since September! On Monday he underwent a food challenge for peanuts at Mount Sinai hospital. It was a long morning of entertaining a wild 19 month old in a small, boring room for 4 1/2 hours while coaxing him into eating spoonfuls of peanut butter every 15 minutes. And yay, holy peanut! He passed. He didn’t have any allergic reactions, so the next day we all celebrated with peanut butter sandwiches. (For those who are interested, Arthur is still allergic to nuts, but the peaNUT, which is technically a legume, is unrelated to the tree nuts and his score for that particular one on the allergy test was low, so the allergist felt that a food challenge was safe. I was still very anxious about it and so relieved about the outcome.)

Mostly, I’ve just been enjoying the boys. I love this stage in Julian’s life. He has become so outgoing with friends and family, and I love listening to his conversations with everyone in his life. And he is just such a lover. He just looooves his friends. He’ll walk up to his friend to hold hands, lean in for a hug, and deliver sweet kisses on the cheek or forehead. It’s always totally unprompted. It’s so funny to see him overcome with a warm fuzzy feeling and act out on it immediately.

Arthur is a wild machine and is making sure our house is never quiet or dull. He sits at the dining room table and blows at our wreath when the candles aren’t lit, just to see what happens. He bounces off the walls, quite literally. He jumps on the bed, flies off the couch, and will run over your feet with his Bobby-Car (a German staple) if you’re not careful.

I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Living on Sesame Street

Jeff and I lived in the East Village before we had children. When we started trying for a baby, we decided to move to Brooklyn. We fell in love with a lovely apartment with lots of windows and high ceilings right on the main street in Brooklyn Heights. Staying on a busy street felt less like quitting to us and made the move to Brooklyn somehow justifiable. A week after we moved in and Jeff had just finished putting his “office” (aka the kids’ room) together, we found out I was pregnant.

We’ve now been here for four years, and we still love it. If you’re from anywhere outside of New York City, you will find what I’m about to write ridiculous. Probably. We live in a 3 story walk-up, plus the outside stoop. We don’t have a washer or drier. We have no outdoor space. The second bedroom is tiny. We have very limited storage.

BUT. But we live in a beautiful place with a great landlord who has never raised the rent on us and said he never would. Our kids have never complained about their shoebox tiny bedroom or the fact that they share a room. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. When Julian wakes up from his nap and Arthur isn’t there, he will cry “I miss Arthur!!!”

And we live in a wonderful neighborhood. We are steps away from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, where tourists from around the world come for the best view of Manhattan. We’re surrounded by playgrounds and parks and restaurants, stores and everything you could ever imagine you might need. We’re also only a block away from the subway station.

And most importantly, we are surrounded by incredible neighbors. Despite living in a big city, we have somehow found a little nook where everyone knows each other and looks out for each other. There is the hair salon in our building with all the lovely girls who fuss over our boys and cut Julian’s hair for free. And there is Estella, the curly-haired ray of sunshine florist, who always has a smile, a kiss, a flower, or a balloon for the boys. She is our favorite neighbor. Just seeing her brightens our day. Her name was among Julian’s first words, and he would stand on the top of our stoop and call “Stellaaaaa!” to her, in a very Marlon Brando-esque fashion.

Mr. Edric is our friend who cleans the street during the day. Julian and Mr. Edric have a special bond; they see each other every day, chat about school and subways and whatnot. Mr. Edric even came to the boys’ birthday party; we were so honored.

There is a pharmacy at the corner where I know I can leave my children to play in the play area unattended because everyone is looking out for them. One time I stopped in, and one of the ladies had made a special cream for me that she wanted me to try on Arthur with all his skin issues. She said it had worked wonders on her kid.

So yes. Is our walk-up a pain in the ass? Yes. Would I love to just throw dirty kid clothes in the washer? Yes. Would I love more room for an actual desk or a piano? Sure. Would I like more storage space? Yup. But for now I will gladly forego all those things and stay right where we are: in the happiest place on earth. Or wait…that’s Disneyland. And we will never go there. But we’ve brought two babies home to this place. This was the first apartment we moved into together. We’ve made a home for our family here. So to us, it is pretty much the happiest place on earth. Well that, and maybe a beach vacation somewhere awesome. Without the kids.