Urban Babies

I spent tonight with my dear friend from high school Anel, her husband Chris (who's got a new sitcom out in the fall called Out of Practice with Stockard Channing and the FONZ so you bettah watch it), and their two adorable munchkins Lucas and Ethan.  Bless their hearts, I really love those children, but I don't know how you NYC parents do it.  Fifteen minutes in Murray's Cheese felt like two hours as we let the cherub-faced Sivas loose from the double-wide MacLaren harnesses.  While 4 year old Lucas somehow got his tiny fingers around a heavy $10 block of Piave, 18 monther Ethan peeked into the refrigerated case of ravioli and tried to stick a finger through all of the invitingly pillowed plastic wrap.  And this with a ratio of 2:3 in favor of the sippy juice-wielding adults.  All of a sudden, the store seemed like a gauntlet of sharp corners, eye-pokers, and fragile perishables.  I've decided that all stores should only start to stack things at 3 1/2 feet -- every square inch underneath should be covered with anti-bacterial latex-padded walls and plexiglass enclosed TVs playing a constant loop of the Wiggles, Teletubbies, and Dora the Explorer.