I love my son. I love New York. I want my son to love New York as much as I do. It is the place where he was born, after all. When we first moved to California, he really liked being there the first week. Actually, the first month. Then it was slowly downhill from there. He came to remember the greatness that is New York. Maybe because I kept reminding him. Or maybe because he truly didn’t like California. Its not for everyone, after all. But we are now back in our beloved grand city of New York and he is happy and more happy. As he gets re-acclimated to New York, I keep trying to impart little bits of NY wisdom. The real truths of being a New Yorker. For example, you must love pizza, bagels, and speedwalking. There is a bit of competitiveness as we walk around. He is not quite there yet. But my goal is to get him there in a year or so. We shall see.

This weekend was the first launch in this training. We were downtown watching a movie -Alita- and we had to make it to Grand Central within a certain amount of time to catch the next train. However, I didn’t tell him, we had less than 15 minutes. Not at first, that is. I originally told him we had an hour. But as walked through the tunnels I quietly got him to pick up the pace. We then got on the train and I encouraged him to stand right close to the door. As the train neared the stop at which we would get off, I looked at my fitbit to see the time. I looked at him and calmly told him we had three minutes to make the next train. He stared up at me and his eyes widened. But he didn’t freak out. He said we could do this. He noted that he had just eaten a whole box of thin Max Brenner Chocolates and thus would have the energy to run through Grand Central to our train.

I laughed and hoped he was right. The doors opened and we ran. We ran up the stairs. We ran up some more stairs. Then another set of stairs. Then we checked the monitor and found our train track and ran towards it cutting across the swarm of people milling about. We had 1 minute left and my legs were starting to tire. I looked at him and he looked winded. But we pushed ourselves, We made it onto the train as the bell was ringing. We had done it. We high-fived each other and hugged. We found seats and laughed. We were dripping in sweat and were bright red. But we had made it. I squeezed him and told him what a great job he had done. He then turned to me and said “mom, that chocolate didn’t really help. It may have slowed me down a little. ” I smiled and noted that next time we’ll have pasta beforehand. He squinted and said “sure.” Not understanding me. I smiled not because he didn’t get it but because he was ready for there to be a next time where we have to sprint to barely make a train. That’s the New York way of life.