May 6, 2005 - Friday
This coming Sunday we will be putting the boys into the car and making the long trip to New York City. We plan to get there around noon, stay overnight, and then leave sometime on Monday afternoon or evening. The boys' mother has business to attend to Monday morning on Park Avenue, so the hotel is paid and driving is less expensive to reimburse than flying. It seems like a good chance to take the boys on a trip, something I've actually been thinking of this for a little while. It seems to me that Harry, at least, is getting to be old enough to remember travel adventures for many years, although my business trips are often farther away and to less little kid-friendly places (mostly Las Vegas). New York, on the other hand, is closer and the trip will be short, with just one night in a hotel, and easy attractions like the Empire State Building, the Central Park Zoo, and the subway to fill up a couple of days. It will be a good test. Harry and Jeremy both know about the trip and they're very excited.

I really don't have any great concern about the dangers of the big city, but I had a little talk today with Harry about the need to always stay very close to me. Harry has been hearing about "bad people" a bit lately, presumably at school and/or from his peers, and he's been asking questions here and there, with more curiosity than trepidation. For example, a few days ago he asked about the "bad people" alarm in our house. It's a tricky concept to explain to a little kid. On the one hand you don't want to scare them, but on the other they need to be smart, even a little bit worldly. So with the New York City trip coming, I talked about two things. First, there are cars everywhere in the big city and, while Harry is always very good about listening in parking lots and on streets, we talked ab out there can be NO fooling around in the big city. Second, we talked about needed to always stay close, because there are so many people in the city and if we got separated it might be very hard to find each other. Harry actually brought up "bad people" taking him (I guess I've referenced that as a reason why I can't leave him in the car alone, too) and that's good.
"Harry," I said, "just about everyone you meet is going to be a good person. The thing is that it only takes one bad person and a place like New York just has sooo many people. So, you just have to be smart about it and as long as you're smart and careful, everything will be just fine. And, since you're a smart kid, we'll just need to be careful, that's all."
He seemed OK with that.


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