Lobbying

Emmett's babysitter asked me a few months ago if I was okay with having him play in the lobby during the cold winter months. It had never occurred to me that Emmett would want to hang out in the lobby of our building, but once he started doing it, I began to notice just how social our lobby is.

The lobby is the New York substitute for a back yard. Having grown up in the suburbs of Chicago, I would have thought that the lobby was a poor substitute. And in certain situations (a warm summer night lit by fireflies, for example) I'm sure that's true. But hanging out in the lobby with a 15 month old baby is surprisingly fun.

There are frequently other parents down there with their kids--everyone has a little cabin fever by 5 PM on a winter's evening. There is our doorman, Hector, who is always willing to have an impromtu game of peekaboo with Emmett. People are coming home from work and heading out to stock up on evening groceries.

When I was a kid, my parents made friends with our next door neighbors--George and Lois. They were an older couple with an above ground pool. On Saturday afternoons, my brother and I would swim until we were blue and pruney. And my parents would sit out on lawn chairs with George and Lois and drink "slush"--George's special, alcohol-and-ice-laden concoction. (This all makes my parents and neighbors sound like lushes which they assuredly were not.)

I am tempted to try my own rendition of slush and bring it down to the lobby to share with the other parents and nannies. I do not think that this would go over well, but I like to imagine it: Sitting on lawn chairs in the lobby drinking slush under the watchful eye of the building security cameras while the kids squabble and putter and play.