Happy, Zen Spot

Mother's Day 2008: Note how calm and peaceful I look. Note how Alex is not! It is highly possible that was NOT my first margarita.




Mother's Day 2009: As drawn by me in Microsoft "Paint" - Please, I know. You are jealous of my amazing drawing abilities. Um, well. We did not bring a camera; at least if we did, we did not use it. The above rendering tho' is much better than a picture. Because at least we are smiling.

We decide to go out for dinner at the same place we had gone the last couple of years, in Old Town Alexandria. Its Family Friendly! (HA! I have yet to figure out what that means exactly. They provide crayons? They make you eat your dinner standing up while [you] admonish your kids to: sit still, try one bite, sit on your butt, not on your feet! stop playing with the salt, stop playing with the pepper, stop beating on the table with the fork, stop beating on the...well you get the idea).

At "Family Friendly" restaurants, they sit all families together, in one section, and the poor waitperson(s) who drew the short straw before the shift began gets to wait on all of us. The advantage to this section is, if YOUR child is not crying, whining, screaming, or trying to escape, you can sit smugly by and thank the good lord its THEM and not you. However, if it is your child, you are now there for everyone else to feel smug and give thanks. We work together, us families.

All was well to start. Truly. The boys colored, Andy and I attempted to make some adult conversation using big words. Then I needed to go to the bathroom. Ian decided he needed to come with me. So off we went. He also needed to use the bathroom, where he sat in a stall all by himself and unraveled ALL the toilet paper.

After re-raveling the toilet paper and washing our hands we headed back to our table. As we stepped out of the bathroom, I could hear the screaming of an unhappy child. As we got closer to our table I realized it was our unhappy child, Alexander. I briefly considered walking on by pretending I did not know Andy or Alex. But the food had arrived, and I was hungry. Andy was holding Alex in sort of a one armed wrestling hold so Alex would NOT "melt" off the booster seat, while having his tantrum hissy fit. Alex was employing that old stand by technique, used by toddlers and protesters everywhere, where you go limp, but keep your back straight; its almost impossible to pick the child up when they do this. Andy was shoveling food into his (Andy's) face. He looked at me, and with great dismay said, "MMMm schmug moof ug mmmoufgofsh".. Right!

I took Alex and held him till he calmed down. Andy split up the boys' food for them to stare at it (digression alert! - our boys don't actually eat food. Well Alex eats a little, but mostly, they exist on air molecules and the occassional Cheezit, or Nutrigrain bar they can scam out of the staff at daycare. Otherwise, its been at least two years since Ian ate dinner. Alex likes to eat ketchup. They seem healthy, and both keep growing so I guess air molecules must be a good diet. I'm going to write a diet book, "Eat Air! Lose Weight!". I'd call it the "Cheez-it Nutrigrain diet"book, but I think people would get the wrong idea, like they could eat those things and lose weight.) Although the boys never eat anything, we feel morally obligated to offer them food at each of the standard meals of the day. We typically offer them something that WE like, so we can then consume it after they are done staring at it (at a restaurant their dinner will become one lunch for one of us). We'd offer them something THEY like, but they don't like anything.

I sat down to eat my BIG salad (I get the same thing at this restaurant, yes, its a salad but its SOOOOO good with faijitaed portabello mushrooms on it! yum!) with my one free hand. Ian helpfully dumped the entire container of salad dressing on my salad for me, in one big gloopy spot (I never use the dressing - just salsa, the salad is SOOO good, with salsa). Alex ate the little crunchy tortilla bits out of it and I ate around all the dressing.

We then tossed money at the waitress and sprinted for the door, because we had enough of allowing the other families to feel smug and thankful. Thus ended Mother's Day dinner '09.

So, if you compare the opening picture of Alex crying at the 2007 Mother's Day dinner to the above story, you can see a trend. I look forward to next year, when we bring the bungee cords with us to keep the boys in place at their OWN table, while we have a nice civilized meal. Preferably in different restaurant from them. HA! Kidding! what a wacky funster I am.

Speaking of Happy, Zen spot, here's is Alex's:

We call it "The Linus". After a long hard day he likes to kick back and relax with a good thumb and a snuggle with his blankie, an old receiving blanket. He has a few he covets. One blanket, was really really gnarly; it had come to breakfast too many times, was covered in snot, spit, milk, juice, and Alex LOVES to "help" wipe himself off with it when we change his diaper (although we DO try to not let him do this). We kept trying to toss it in the laundry, but he refused the replacement blankie, and would NOT settle down to sleep until he had this one. Obviously, he had just gotten it PERFECT and we were trying to ruin it. We finally figured out there are 3 or 4 of these blankies he will accept - SUBSTITUTIONS are not allowed. Yeesh.

Ian's happy Zen spot.

Because we did not have enough fun going out to dinner on Mother's Day, we decided to spend a long weekend in Pennsylvania, visiting Grandma Mimi. Sharing a hotel room with 2 small children is not something for the sane. But then, we are parents, no one said we were sane.

They will let ANYONE sit on a park bench these days.

Sesame Place- somewhere in Pennsylvania (not Transylvania although from the below picture you might think so)- on an overcast/rainy day and there were no crowds and we kept patting ourselves on the pack for our brilliance:




One little picture! two little pictures! Vey yes! Ets ze Count! ah haaahaaaa !


Over part of the park was this net obstacle course of sorts. You had to climb up several flights of stairs and then you crawled out on to a network of nets. These were WAAAAY above the crowds. It was cool. I hung out with Alex in a sand pit, while Andy and Ian crawled around like spiderman. Lots of small kids doing this and surpisingly no one below got wet from any child having a sudden bladder control problem due to fright.


Alex went on a number of rides. He would cry the whole while we waited for the ride to start moving, but once moving he would be fine. Probably too terrified to cry. Here Alex tries to make the tea cup go 'round and 'round (like wow, dude!)

This was beautiful in its simplicity. It was basically a tarp, made into a mountain. One climbed up, then slide down on one's butt (or stomach, or head, or whatever body part one happened to tumble over on) Ian spent a great deal of time doing this- and once he got the hang of how to NOT body slam other kids, he enjoyed it immensely. Even Alex made an attempt, although I had to push him up by his butt; he thought the slide down was the best thing next to sucking his thumb and snuggling with his blankie.

This is my favorite restaurant in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD- it is the only place I ever want to take my children ever again. And yes, we still attempt to eat out, because we will never learn (see the part above about sanity or lack thereof). This is Otto's- its also in PA near Grandma Mimi. This is the outside patio. They sat us next to the goldfish pond, which also had a small waterfall. They also had an accordian player (lederhosen! Or its distant relative)!!! Every restaurant should get one immediately. He totally ROCKED. Both musically and in a human being way. He came over with the small accordian (pictured above) and asked Ian to play with him. Not only were the boys endlessly amused by the fish pond, but TOTALLY enraptured with the guy playing the accordian. Alex danced in his seat. Andy and I got to eat our dinners with both hands. It was bliss. Plus we had really really good beer.

And now, Ian plays you some of his favorite polka favorites! Also, he does his best Pete Townsend impersonation with this accordian!

Also, I have no idea why, I turned the camera on its side to shoot most of the video. Please do not hurt yourself in the viewing of this video.

We went to some friends', on Memorial day, that we have not seen in a long long long time; they live in Annapolis on a river.

Laughing on the Dock of the Bay

Friends who provide small children wooden mallets, are friends indeed!

And then of course, there was the attack of the Camels! Rather than "Ships of the Desert", these were the "Mooches of the Reston Zoo"- they were relentless is their quest for food and small children's appendages.

and now, I leave you with this final video, that probably should have started this whole entry off, but it didn't. Sosumi..