Little Kids, Big City: Tales from a Real House in New York City (With Lessons on Life and Love for Your Own Concrete Jungle) (7 page)

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Authors: Alex McCord,Simon van Kempen

BOOK: Little Kids, Big City: Tales from a Real House in New York City (With Lessons on Life and Love for Your Own Concrete Jungle)
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In fact, out of the many early trips we took, we spent more time managing our caregiver than the kids. For the first three years of Johan’s life we had au pairs, and coordinating who had to take the kids to the bathroom, whose turn it was to sleep and how much time the au pair had to sightsee was the biggest job of all.
 
In St. Barths
 
Will They Remember?
In a word, no. At least not the earliest trips.
Alex: Johan, what countries have you been to?
Johan: Ummm, Dallas and the Hamptons.
 
 
(Both of which we’d been to in the two weeks prior to me asking him.)
 
Alex: Have you been to France?
Johan: What’s France, Mama?
Half an hour later, we thought we’d try François.
Simon: What’s the first trip you remember, F-Boy?
François: Africa.
Alex: Wow, you remember that trip?
François: I just know that I went.
Simon: How do you know?
François: Because you told me!
 
Our six-year-old does not actually remember being in Australia at the age of three months, nor does he remember being in Monte Carlo or Italy at the age of three years. He does, however, understand that he was there with us when we talk about the trips, and recognizes himself in photos of all the places we’ve been together. When he went back to Oz at the age of five, he knew that he’d been there before and was excited to see all the things “he missed” the first time, like petting the kangaroos as opposed to being held by Daddy in a photo next to one. He recognizes the big carousels one sees everywhere in France as being French, and will always ask if photos of him or Johan riding one were taken in France—he was only wrong once, and it was Monaco so close enough! A fun addition to the experience is when we go somewhere we’d been previously with François only, and return with Johan. François becomes the big brother travel guide, regardless of whether he remembers anything about the place. Now whenever we travel, Johan asks, “Have I been there before?” Both boys know that we like to travel and to take them with us, which makes them feel special. They are excited to see new places and have new experiences, and pick up on the fact that Simon and I are excited, too—we share in the fun. That is the best takeaway from gallivanting across the galaxy with minors. We have two relatively fearless kids who love seeing new things and are excited to share adventures with Mom and Dad.
ALEXʹS TOP 10 TRAVEL MEMORIES:
 
10. A late dinner in Cannes with one month old Johan asleep in his car seat under the table
9. The complete change in mood when two bored boys on a car trip in Australia suddenly saw a kangaroo in a paddock
8. A great photo of François riding a reindeer with fake snow on the beach in the south of France
7. Sitting in a gorgeous orchard in Morocco while nursing François
6. Walking with baby Johan in a sling in Italy marveling that after nearly years I still remembered enough Italian to brag about my baby to an interested stranger
5. Being silently offered multiple glasses of wine by a sympathetic flight attendant during a flight from hell back from overseas with two cranky boys a passed out from exhaustion husband and an au pair with the flu.
4. François gleefully peeling off layer upon layer of bunting once he came inside during a winter weekend in Montreal
3. Johan watching in amazement as a large turtle devoured the hibiscus flower heʹd offered it.
 
Two Boys and a Hungry Turtle
 
 
2. Both boys charging down Saline Beach in St Barths like something out of
Lord of the Flies
1. Seeing the look of recognition on three year old François face after we drove from France into Italy and he realized the language changed
 
Chapter 4
 
“Mommy, Johan is Gone!”
 
When Accidents Happen
 
Nothing can prepare you for the feeling of absolute helplessness when your child gets hurt, and you get to the point where you realize that there is nothing more you can do to help them. This hit home when a recent accident happened.
 
Alex
We were meant to be in Atlantic City for 24 hours—a limo ride down from New York Saturday morning, the afternoon spent playing on the boardwalk with the boys, a panel discussion that evening, breakfast and more boardwalk playing en famille Sunday morning and a ride back home. Somehow our worst family accidents seem to happen outside of New York—maybe we should never leave! We arrived on Saturday as planned and met up with friends at a neighboring hotel. The boys immediately joined forces with two sisters of similar ages and proceeded to have a grand old time splashing each other in the pool. We lounged in a cabana near the edge of the pool and caught up with the other adults, had a fruit platter and generally acknowledged that in that moment, life was good. Simon walked to the edge of the pool and began chatting with François, when
it
happened. The metal plate covering the bolts on the railing to the stairs was loose, and François’ big toe got caught underneath when he waded up the stairs to get out of the pool. His toe had been cut. At that point all we knew was that the cut was very deep, blood was everywhere and François was in shock.
Security navigated us through the crowd and down to the entrance to a waiting cab to the nearest ER, which luckily on a Saturday afternoon was empty. We received the news that François’ tendon had been severed, which hit us hard, and we began to think of our options. He would need orthopedic surgery to repair the tendon. As the cut happened just after lunch, the earliest the procedure could begin was 9 p.m. due to the necessity of an eight-hour fasting period before undergoing anesthesia. In order to avoid him having to spend the night in the hospital, we decided to have the wound closed temporarily and foot immobilized and we scheduled the surgery for early the next morning.
Since François wouldn’t be able to eat for eight hours, we tried to minimize his discomfort by giving him a huge dinner and waking him up right before it was time to go back to the hospital. He was not in pain, and the shock had worn off to the point that he would have bounded around the hotel room that night in his splint if we’d allowed it. We explained to him that he needed to have a doctor fix the tendon, that he would have to go to sleep while it happened and he would be given medicine to make him go to sleep. Of course the hardest part for François was not eating. By the time he was ready to be taken to the operating theatre at about 10:30 a.m., he had been awake for two and a half hours, and had never before waited that long to have any food or drink, although they had him on a fluid IV. He looked at me forlornly and said, “I know I’m not supposed to have anything, but Mommy, I’m so hungry.” I hugged him and tried not to completely break down; I still can’t get over how brave he was.
While François was in the operating room, we coped in different ways. Simon took multiple walks to Starbucks and got on the phone, funneling information to relatives and friends who knew about the incident. I stayed with Johan, who was clearly aware of what had happened, but still a pretty normal three-year-old. I played with him and tried to keep calm. Knowing the risks of general anesthesia, I was terrified that some kind of complication would happen. I thought of him going into cardiac arrest on the table, or of a piece of gauze being left in the wound and becoming infected. I thought of scar tissue building up and interfering with François’ ability to walk normally. My mind went a little crazy and I even thought of having to make phone calls to tell people that we’d lost him. I remembered being five years old myself, and holding my father’s hand as he cried when he got the news that his son, my half-brother, had been killed in a car accident driving home from college. I then snapped back to reality and played with Johan, and my mind went off on another tangent. I thought of the kids and teens I knew growing up who had suffered debilitating accidents or had died. In the years we’ve been parents, François has been the most accident-prone, and the only one who had ever been to the ER or needed stitches. Did that mean that when Johan grew up to be a teenager, he’d be killed in a car accident or hit by a bus while riding his bicycle? Was Johan saving up all his nine lives to go out with a bang later on? Would either of them, or the two little girls who had been in the pool at the time of the accident, have nightmares about all the blood? As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about the girls. They got out of the pool and told their mother, “He got hurt, but his parents are there.” The fact of the matter is that once you make the commitment to having children, there’s always the possibility that something terrible could happen to them, just as one of us or our loved ones could get killed on the road. Although the statistics were in our favor, bad things do happen. I kept trying to bring myself to focus on getting through the hour, and spoke politely to a few
Housewives
fans who approached and wondered what had happened. This was an additional wrinkle—it was the first time any one of us had needed medical treatment since we became more recognizable than the average family, and everyone at the hospital seemed to know we were there. One young woman who was a hospital employee participating in a disaster drill came up to us covered in latex wounds, and I was so out of it that for a moment I thought she was actually injured. She said she regretted seeing us there because it meant someone was hurt, and that she hoped everything turned out well.
 
Simon
One of the most magical experiences of parenting is watching young babies, toddlers and children before they’re affected by the norms of social behavior
.
Fear is seemingly a learned behavior as we scream and run to stop the crawling baby going near the top of the stairs lest it pivot and tumble down. Fear might be based on the unknown, à la the bogeyman looming in the dark, but simultaneously one can argue that sometimes ignorance is bliss and protects one from experiencing fear. François knew not what to expect as he went off to the operating theatre other than he was going to have a little sleep and while he was so doing his toe would be fixed. So while his parents were madly cramping inside with the knowledge of the risks of general anesthesia on young children, we were delightfully brought back to reality and the here and now by his younger brother, Johan. While not showing any lack of concern for his big brother, Johan continually reassured us that François would be fine and they’d soon be happily splashing each other in the pool again. This trip was François’ fifth visit to the ER and fortunately his first (and hopefully) last involving major surgery. For the 90 minutes he was in surgery and the first few in recovery before we all joined him to watch him wake up, Johan kept Alex and me sane. Honestly, if it had just been us, those 90 minutes would have been far harder and longer. Johan, thanks!

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