Flying High

Original post written on July 31, 2012

I’ve been trying to get to the Georgetown Waterfront for their Tuesday morning kid’s concerts, but it has been ungodly hot or thunderstormy. This Tuesday, the weather promised low 90s and cloudy. Perfect. We packed lunches and a picnic blanket and headed to the waterfront. There were 17 women with children, 15 of those were very obviously nannies. It was a strange audience, and an even stranger children’s performer. She sang a few Laurie Berkner songs, typical. But, the majority of her set was Grateful Dead songs. At least I think they were, most of the music was drown out by the many military helicopters, planes taking off from the nearby airport and air boat fire rescue drill that happened in the middle of her performance. She didn’t seem to notice. I spoke to her briefly afterwards and I’m pretty sure she didn’t notice because she was high. You gotta make it through the day anyway you can, I guess?

*

We had an early swim and dinner that evening. R had found a Marine Corp Silent Drill Platoon and Marching Band performance, so we headed to Arlington National Cemetery to take the free shuttle to the Iwo Jima Memorial where we’d watch the performance. The shuttle was M’s favorite part of the night. His least favorite part was a very unexpected 21 gun salute. He was leaning against my leg at the time and I could feel his little heart practically beating out of his chest. The performance was inspiring, but once again confirmed my suspicions that anything longer than 45 minutes is no bueno for us at this age. It made me feel a bit better watching the other families with small children fend off the same whines “I’m thirsty! How much longer now? Do you have any snacks? Can I go climb that statue? I have to go to the bathroom.”

* - OK, OK.  You're right.  That is actually Janis Joplin.  But it's a pretty accurate picture of what the performance was like.

He knows how to use it

Original post written July 30, 2012

We had our third and final class at the National Gallery of Art today. I’m not going to go on and on about how wonderful and free these amazing classes have been, that would be redundant of me. I love that they are learning something, as evidenced by S shouting at “Little Einsteins” artist of the day, “Claude Monet?! We know that guy! He got old, went blind and painted his blurry gardens in France!”

But the thing I want to remember about this week concerns M. Just before class today, he asked me if he could wear the headband that I had in my hair.

Me: “To class, buddy?”

M:  “Yep. Can I have it?”

So I gave him the headband and he pulled it on over his mohawk all 80s “Footloose” like.

He sat through the entire lesson on Degas and rocked that headband.

This kid has style.

Testing my Knowledge

Original post written on July 28, 2012

R and I took the Salad to Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday. I pulled the Salad aside at the entrance to read them the sign stating, “Please conduct yourself with dignity and respect. These are hallowed grounds.”

“What is dignity?”
“What does hallowed mean?”

Thus began their questions.  We just thought the kids would think the Changing of the Guard was cool to watch – guns and soldiers and all. They were reasonably interested. But the questions, oh the questions!

“What is a soldier?”
“What is an unknown soldier?”
“What is a war?”
“What is a tomb?”
“Is that a real person in the tomb?”
“Will the guns be loud?”
“Are all these peoples dead?”
“What does solemn mean?”

I had a question too.

What on earth was I thinking?

Pride

Original post written on July 27, 2012

I took the Salad to see a planetarium show at the Air & Space Museum this morning. I had low expectations, seeing as our last planetarium show was an epic failure. This show was geared towards children; Big Bird and Elmo were the stars. Judging from the “Wows!” and “Ohhhhhs!” I’d say they loved it. S was so proud that they made it through the “dark movie” that she made me call Grammy to share the news.

We headed down to the Astronauts section, where a little demonstration about flight suits was going on. As soon as we walked in, the woman asked for a volunteer. Each one of my babes shot their hands straight into the air. She picked M. He marched bravely onto that stage and sat on the stool. The woman told him he was going to put on a space suit. The first part of the suit was called a mag. The mag looks like an adult diaper. M saw it, looked like he was going to cry, shook his head no and told the lady he didn’t want to be the volunteer anymore. She told him he’d been brave, asked everyone to clap for him and asked for another volunteer. A and S shot their hands back into the air. This time, she called on A. A walked onto the stage, kicked her sneakers off and pulled that diaper right over her skirt.

It's strange to feel proud of your 5 year old daughter wearing an adult diaper in front of a roomful of strangers, but I did.

Life Lesson from 5 year olds

Original post written on July 26, 2012

I drove the Salad to Maryland this morning to the Launch Zone of what is called the National Children’s Museum. I searched Yelp to no avail. That should have been my first clue. Apparently, the actual museum closed many years ago and this storefront “launch zone” is the first action in a series of actions that will eventually result in a new National Children’s Museum. So basically, I drove 20 minutes to a room barely bigger than our house filled to the brim with toys. I’ll admit I was disappointed. I should not have been though, because here are the good things.

1.  I found parking on the street right outside. 
2.  It was free.
3.  The Salad loved it.
4.  There was a building “event” today.

Essentially there were huge blue building blocks and tubes and the Salad set to work. An employee was there taking notes today. Apparently, her job is to see if kids like the “event.” If they do, it will eventually become an exhibit in the new Museum. She kept asking the Salad (who played only with these blocks for 2 hours) what they were building. Here is the list:

a car, a bench, a robot, a bird’s nest, a seesaw, a catapult, a limbo stick, a slide, a balance beam, a horse, a ballet bar, a ball run, a princess castle, and a tricycle.

I need to remember, if I align my expectations to those of a 5 year olds, I’ll rarely be disappointed.

105 glorious extra minutes

Original post written on July 25, 2012

We’ve been in DC for 18 days now and have been to the National Museum of Natural History three times. Today makes 4 times and we still haven’t seen the whole museum. I intentionally kept the hands on Discovery Room for a day when we needed a break. It’s only 2 blocks away and meant for kids 2 – 6 so I knew it wouldn’t be too crowded. The Salad had full reign of the room for the first 15 minutes, which was perfect because there were exactly 3 microscopes. One for each Salad ingredient!

They colored a little, made some music with unusual instruments, checked out bones and bugs with magnifying glasses, played with toys from around the world. A played with a Jacob’s Ladder for 30 minutes. Note to self – get A a Jacob’s Ladder for her birthday.

After a while, M’s blood sugar started to plummet and I knew we better get the heck outta dodge. We headed out to the National Mall, found a bench in the shade and ate a picnic lunch I had snuck in our backpack.

Our last leg of this trip included a ride on the famous carousel. We opted to ride the spinning bench together and I spun the dressing right out of the Salad. As they stumbled off trying to regain their balance, A said “Best.Carousel.Ever!”

Last night, we checked out the Enid A. Haupt Garden. It’s a tiny green sanctuary on the roof of the Sackler building. I had heard there were fountains good for stomping, but they had been turned off by the time we got there. The only water left was a small fountain water fall, which the Salad was perfectly content to dip their tootsies in and throw pennies for wishes.

I love living right in the heart of the city. I love that R wants to take full advantage of living right in the heart of the city. I love that R can walk to his temporary office in less than 5 minutes, which means we get an extra hour and 45 minutes with him each night. I love that each day R sends me a text message asking what we are going to do with those extra 105 minutes.

Come on and wade way out into the Water

Original post written on July 24, 2012

The Salad had their second of four classes at the National Gallery of Art. Today, they learned about Monet and his gardenscapes. They were read a book, lead to Monet’s “Garden at Giverny" to analyze the painting and then turned loose to create their own “water lily garden.” Seriously, y’all. 30 4-7 year olds were turned loose with oil pastels in a building that houses masterpieces. Talk about the honor system.

It started sprinkling as soon as we stepped out of the building, which thwarted our plans for a picnic. However, by the time R had gotten home from work, the weather had cleared up nicely and we went for an evening wade in the National Sculpture garden fountain.

On our walk home, there was yet another concert at the Navy Memorial. This time there was a beautiful “Advance of the Colors.” M was beside himself as he watched the flags and gun salute. He asked me 3 different times, “Make sure you video this, OK Mama?”

Oh, I taped it alright, though the main subject of my video was S shaking her "thoin" to a rousing rendition of Gaelic Storm’s “Scalliwag”.

Real time update on September 1, 2012

While looking through the 595 photos that I took of our month long stay in DC, the only picture I had of this day was this one of a strange robot in a crosswalk I stopped in the street to take. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .