I need to backtrack. I got so excited about Belize that I didn’t debrief New York City.

We saw, we ate, we shopped, we touched an absurd amount of surfaces and we had a normal number of sibling squabbles, plus a bonus one at 2am.

At home the other day, BB and RB were ready to kill each other. I put my beach/swim bag down the middle of our dinner table to mitigate the “looks” that were being fired across the table.

BB sighs. I ask,

“What?”

“You’re probably going to say no.”

“Just ask me.”

“Can we have a sleepover tonight?”

“You can’t even sit at the same dinner table without a barrier between you and your sister and you want a sleepover?!”

“Yeah?”

“…Ok. If she wants one too.”

RB pipes up from the other side of the beach bag.

“I DO!”

What is happening? I feel like a crazy person.

My one rule about sleepovers is that no one can wake me up. In NYC that rule went out the window. At 2am RB tapped my shoulder. BB’s body parts were crossing the midline of their bed.

Aside from bed-territory issues, the weekend was a success and proof that expectations really make or break things.

Before we left, the weather prediction looked very bad: a nor’easter with high wind and torrential rain was looming. I was depressed thinking we’d be navigating the city in that.

I have never been more grateful to be exploring in a drizzle. Four people, four dolls, and one newly stuffed bunny, all stayed very happy and mostly dry.

RB is a reluctant walker. There were moments over the course of the weekend, mainly when she was on my or Captain’s back, when I wondered if I should’ve held on to a stroller.

Months in advance I bought tickets to the Statue of Liberty’s crown. It’s 215 steps to the pedestal and 162 steps to the crown. The staircase is a narrow, double-helix spiral.

I gave the whole thing a 50/50 whether we’d make it up any stairs.

We made it to the pedestal with enthusiasm to spare and up we went to the crown. No one asked me to carry them which would’ve been impossible. I’m still not sure how Captain fit at all.

After the Statue of Liberty, we found ourselves in the M&M store.

I should know better than to go into a candy store where it’s a help-yourself, weigh-it-later situation. We were all drawn to the colorful tubes of M&Ms.

RB held a bag underneath, opened the end of the blue M&Ms and out they poured. They couldn’t have come out any faster.

I took our three pounds of M&Ms and asked a sales person,

“We have more than we want, what should we do?”

Technically we had exactly how much RB wanted, but the hemorrhaging of money had to stop somewhere.

I was told we could dump out what we didn’t want. So I did and then RB added more in a variety of colors. We just about recreated a pre-made bag of M&Ms.

We got the biggest bang for our buck at the Lego store. The kiddos spent half-an-hour personalizing their mini-figures. It is not a process that can be rushed. Lego people have a surprising number of leg options.

Then RB spent the next hour free building. It was Saturday night and the store was closing. RB was in the zone. I chatted with an employee who was deconstructing legos faster than RB was putting them together.

Unprompted she said,

“I’m glad it’s not Sunday.”

“Why?”

“Sundays we stay late and wash all the legos.”

Right. The amount of hands I saw pawing through bins of legos in one hour makes a week’s worth of hands mind-boggling.

And the fact that we’re touching legos almost overdue for a wash, is not something Captain needed to know.

The whole trip was designed around a visit to the American Girl Place. We went on RB’s 6th birthday. There was a hair appointment for her and her doll, a nail appointment for her and her doll and lunch for four people and four dolls.

It was ridiculous and amazing. RB had been insisting she needed a boy doll for months, so Captain got the look-a-like doll he’s always dreamed of.

After a doll-filled day, we took as many dolls and bunnies as fit in our new backpacks, had chocolate cake for dinner and ended the marathon weekend on Broadway at Aladdin.

I thought for sure RB would be a mess walking back to the hotel at 9pm, but she danced and sang in the drizzle the whole way back.

For RB’s birthday night (the night after our anniversary), she slept in my bed and Captain slept with BB, our tenth wedding anniversary a distant memory. And technically it was celebrated months ago in the Galápagos when we were not in the same hotel room as our children.