Natasha Glaze: @Eric Weinstock Calling out someone for blatant racism isn’t hostile, but I’m not surprised you’d see it that way. Have a nice day.
The chain continued to veer further away from Isabel’s disappearance. I was familiar with the conflict they were referring to: a couple of months ago, Project Renewal had partnered with the Two Parks Hotel on Seventy-Ninth Street, using it as a temporary shelter for eighty homeless men in treatment for addiction. The neighborhood seemed divided on this: some people were outraged by their newfound proximity to recovering addicts, some of whom did have criminal records, and others thought it was a great use of the space and the neighborhood resources, an example of effective housing justice that we should all be proud to be participating in. I personally hadn’t noticed any concerning behavior near the hotel, or sensed any decline in safety in the neighborhood whatsoever, but for a while, you couldn’t walk a block without a NIMBY approaching you asking you to sign a petition to remove them, insisting that there were too many families and schools in this neighborhood to safely host these men. Which made me wonder: Where in New York, or the world, weren’t there families and schools?
I wasted time scrolling through other, more trivial, posts, trying to take my mind off Isabel:
Valerie Baker: Hi moms! Where can I find XXXXL （lol） sleep sacks?! My 3 y/o does NOT like sleeping with a loose blanket. It hurts his legs. Yes. Hurts. But it’s hard to find a sack that fits because the kid weighs 40 pounds. Lolol. Help please.
27 replies
Melissa Gross: Moms of kids in gifted and talented programs—when did you start practicing for the test? Are you happy with the programs at PS 9 and PS 166? My girl is 2.5 but it’s never too soon to think ahead right! Also interested in music programs for her if anyone has any recs.
53 replies
Allie Brennan: If you have a vista stroller with a yellow cup holder, and a roughly 4 y/o son with a Paw Patrol raincoat, please PM me. I want to talk to you about your nanny. I have some rather serious concerns and if I were you I’d want to know what I saw her doing.
107 replies
Anika Ayub: Planning my mom’s surprise 75th birthday! Does anyone know which restaurants in the neighborhood have private rooms?
9 replies
Finally, I put my phone down, exhausted. Clara was dozing noisily, no longer latched to my right boob, but using it as a pillow instead. Reading Upper West Side Moms almost always left me with a headache, and yet, I continued to do it regularly.
I had just managed to successfully transfer Clara to her bassinet—a rare feat for me—and was tiptoeing out of her room （actually, my room, though it certainly didn’t feel that way anymore） when loud knocking on my apartment door made me jump.
I hadn’t heard the buzzer downstairs and I had no idea who this could be. Even though it was Sunday, Tim had to be at work most of the day, since he had a big pitch coming up midweek. I was annoyed that he had to work on a weekend, but I believed him when he said it was unavoidable. And I knew he’d been trying to be home as much as possible; he’d managed to dial back his travel significantly, having taken only a couple of day trips to DC and Boston since Clara had been born. Maybe it was him knocking if he’d forgotten his key, but I wasn’t expecting him back until close to dinnertime. I hadn’t ordered food, either; I actually hadn’t eaten at all yet that day—just coffee—and I couldn’t remember any significant meals yesterday, either. A lot of string cheeses and peanut butter spoonfuls. Tim and I had ordered Thai for dinner last night, but it took so long to arrive that I was passed out on the couch by the time it did, and he hadn’t wanted to wake me. I’d shoved a spring roll down my throat following a 1:00 a.m. feed.
I hustled to the door to avoid more loud knocking, thinking, Whoever this is, if you wake my baby, you can get her back to sleep yourself.
My heart leaped into my throat: two police officers stood at my door. They weren’t wearing uniforms, but they were each holding their badges for me to see. They were a man and a woman: he in his late forties, she just a little older than me, maybe.
“Are you Jennifer Donnelly?” the male officer asked.
“Yes?” It squeaked out as a question.
“Hi. I’m Detective Sherer,” he said, “and this is Detective Blaylock.” She smiled faintly and nodded, looking past me and seeming to briefly take in the hurricane of baby gear that was my apartment. “Okay if we come in?” her partner went on. “We have a few questions for you about Isabel Harris. We’re investigating her disappearance.”