Cold Spaghetti

We’re off to DC for a very very very last minute (company sponsored) weekend, due to my parents generous offer to watch the kids.

And it’s SNOWING there. Will is going to freak out if he finds out we’re going somewhere with SNOW and he’s not coming. (This is the kid who shivers when it’s 75.) Cheers for good flying weather along the East!

Paul banished me to Mobile this weekend so that he could work ’round the clock, uninterrupted. Really, this is what he does anyway, but with the three day weekend (Monday was a Teacher Workday) it made sense for me to get a little extra help with the kids and for him to not lose any work time.
At some point during the weekend, we took the kids to the Exploreum — the new exhibit, Grossology: the “impolite” science of the human body, had opened. Below is the host of Grossology, Silvia. She freaked the kids out.
The exhibit lived up to it’s name. It was seriously gross. Example given. One of the first parts of the exhibit discussed the various bacteria that cause body smells. A picture of the offending bacterium (one for armpit smell, foot odor, gas, and morning breath) stood beside a tube where you could press a button, catch a waif of the odor, and then guess which it was. I was unfortunate to get morning breath, but not as unfortunate as my Dad, who got the bacterium which matched up with the word “anus.”

It was totally gross. Good job on the truth in advertising.

This was Will’s favorite part. Shooting Boogers into huge nostrils. He talked about shooting boogers for two days straight after seeing this.

See that big ‘ole nose in back of my Mom and Kate? That one you got to walk through to learn more about snot.

Digestion! This came right after the machines you use to make one character barf and the other burp (another Will fave.) All five of us are in this picture as Will and I watch our GI tracks at work.

My Dad really liked the word choices involved here and had them each memorized in order by the time we left. Will LOVED that. (Thanks, really.)
Gas Attack pinball machine! Score points for the bouncing off the most effective gas-producing foods (big points for diary and broccoli, game points for beans). Too bad Paul wasn’t with us… one of the two pins (which were old EMs) was broken. My Dad and I figured that 5 minutes, a spark, and a quick puff of ozone was all Paul would need to get it working again, good as new. Poor folks had the kin of the pinball whiz in their midsts and didn’t even know it!

The exhibit was over Will’s head in terms of the content (he’s not quite ready to absorb that level of science). But as an educational tool for grade school kids (and adults) it was really neat. But shooting boogers? Will is totally there.

UPDATE: Paul saw this post, glanced at the photo of the pinball machine, and said, “Oh, they used a Breakshot.” (We found a really nice Breakshot while in B’burg and fixed it up for a friend — she gave it as a wedding present to her new husband, a very good friend of Paul’s. It is not one of my favorite games.) True to form, Paul rattled off a few common problems with the game and said that we were right, he’d of had it working in no time.

Will got dressed up on some of his new duds on Saturday to attend the Mobile Symphony with my parents for the First Time Ever. My Dad is into attending the Symphony the way some men are into, say, football. Everything is scheduled around the performance dates and a certain play can send him levitating*. My parents got the tickets to take Will months ago — I stayed home with Baby Kate.
This weekend’s performance of Disney Pops was especially geared for youngsters. The whole way to Mobile on Friday, we listened to favorite tunes (including ones that we regularly sing) and discussed which ones might be played by the orchestra. Will was SO EXCITED that on Saturday, he spoke of NOTHING ELSE but going to the Symphony. Although we did plenty Saturday morning to tire him out (visit to the Exploreum, lunch out with my Dad) his excitement spilled into naptime and The Little Man was unable to bring himself to go to sleep. (This is a big deal: remember, Will is Abeona’s champion napper!)
According to my parents, Will chattered on about the Symphony the WHOLE WAY there. Upon arrival, in their words, he was “the perfect child.” By all accounts, he loved it. The guest conductor was straight from Disney and arrived with a collection of other professional Disney-folk to spice things up. A large screen hung over the stage showing clips from movies that reflected the music. When the orchestra played “Feed the Birds,” Will perked up and announced that he knew all the words (like Walt Disney himself, the song is one of my very favorites and we sing it at bedtime each night). At intermission, Will went down to the patrons reception room, where supporters of the Symphony are invited for treats during performances. Will especially liked this part because it involved eating a lot of brownies with my Dad.
The second act had the big numbers… Under the Sea, Be Our Guest, and then the Finale: PIRATES (professional Disney actors) soaring in on ropes, landing on the stage, and having a huge sword-fight all over the stage to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie music. Can you imagine Will’s face?!? Whoa.

Imagine instead what it looked like when he found out about it the next morning. He fell asleep at some point (perhaps during Be Our Guest?) and was GONE. My parents tried all they could to wake him to see the pirates (can you picture their desperation?) but The Little Man was CHECKED OUT. Yo-ho-ho.
No matter. Will tells us that “his boy” LOVED that part of the Symphony. So it’s all good. Will can’t wait to go back for more.

—
*For the next performance (Halloween Pops) pieces include: Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King, The Imperial March (from Star Wars), the Spiderman theme, Funeral March of Marionette (Alfred Hitchcock theme), and music from the Harry Potter films (along with some other very popular pieces that I can’t quite remember at the moment). I think Dad really did float up for a few seconds when he read the program.

Tampa was planned about a month ago in a last minute sort-of way, when we discovered that we had an outstanding credit that wasn’t properly applied to some of Paul’s travel. We were going to loose $300 if we didn’t both book and complete something travel-related by September 12th. We looked at cities that Southwest serves through direct flights and decided on Tampa (gulf coast beach). Matt and Laura were up for a couple’s weekend and with Laura’s skills with deals and destinations, planned the getaway.

It was the longest time I’ve EVER been away from the kids. I was still nursing Kate and at approximately 3 nights and 4 days (Friday morning-Monday night), it was the longest time I’d gone without nursing. Surprise: I didn’t swell up to gargantuan proportions during the absence AND, Kate quickly took back to nursing without incident. So much for that as a potential weaning strategy.

The kids stayed with my parents joined by my brother and sister-in-law. This provided the 2:1 ratio (two adults for each single child) as recommended when watching our kids. As we understand it, a great time was had by all… but by Monday they (the care-givers, not the kids) were looking forward to getting us back and taking very long naps. My Dad decided that Kate was Klingon (attributed to her grunt-speak) and took it upon himself to teach Will that his parents are “old,” a detail that Will lost no time in sharing with us. Repeatedly.

I am a bit embarrassed to say that while I certainly thought about the kids at every moment, I was happy to have some down time. The feeling must have been mutual, as the kids weren’t particularly distressed in our absence and took our return in similar stride. (Okay, I admit it. My heart swelled like the Grinch’s when we came in and they ran up to jump in our arms.)

It seems unreal that there were full days where I could sit and read pool-side, look for seashells, and leave the sliding door to the balcony open while running inside for a drink… all without worry. The company was more than we could have asked for — we made a lot of good memories and laughed all the time. A perfect way to vacation.

Considering that Matt is a professional photographer and I am a wanna-be, it makes perfect sense that neither of us managed to get a group photo. But I did get some good tips from Matt, got to play with his impressive camera and super-wide lens, and had Paul scared stiff that I was going to want to switch to Nikon. (It’s okay… I love my D400!) Artsy-fartsy playing with the camera pictures from the weekend to follow.Rose petals from a beach-side wedding ceremony.
Morning walk along the surf… with the birds.

Scruffy sea dog hanging out while his owner fishes in the Pass.
I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I seem to be obsessed with shelling. Me and all the Florida retirees, stooped over at the foamy edge. Next I’ll be wearing black calf-height socks with my sandals and shorts. New obsession: making jewelry with found objects.
Showy gulls.
Matt and Paul (below) in the few moments we had almost sailing. The outboard motor died before we were out of the Bay (it had an existing problem with water in the engine that hadn’t been worked out yet) — leaving us in the middle of the channel in a dead calm. We had to be towed back to shore. Good thing it happened before we were really far out, otherwise, those jokes we were making about Gillian’s Island could have come back to haunt us. And that would have sucked since I completely forgot my MaryAnn outfit.

This is as far out as we got. Notice the sea wall? We didn’t have a lot of time to drift before needing a tow.
This is where we were trying to go. Next time we’ll make it!
Sunsets were gorgeous.


Beautiful beautiful sky, beach and sea!

After a whirlwind visit to D.C., a week helping my Mom, and then a blissful weekend in Tampa with friends (more on that later), we are HOME.

And bounced right back into life. Kids, lunches, school, meetings. I had a productive day of recovery-agency-related focus groups, learned a lot, and enjoyed it. Paul spent the day in a work snafu. After a great visit to school seeing the faces of many people we love, we made plans for dinner out. We took our friend and babysitter-extraordinare, Michelle, to Frankie and Johnny’s and were able to bring along the consultant who hired me for the focus groups. In other words, it was a good New Orleans day. After that blissful weekend on the beach, we need a few more of these NOLA-moments to remind us of how and why we love this city.

Our number-one NOLA moment for the day: Kate reaching over to pick up Michelle’s oyster po-boy and before we could say boo — taking a HUGE bite. Twice. And then proceeding to grab oysters off the plate and shove them into her little mouth. That’s our NOLA girl!

Friends Randy and Katherine spent Labor Day with us — fun lunch at Rivera’s (Peruvian) and an afternoon on the National Mall taking in some of the big sites at the Smithsonian museums. It was a gorgeous day — absolutely perfect — and we were so thankful to have such great company!Will LOVED the Air and Space Museum — which I understand is the most visited museum in the world! He was especially taken by the space exploration exhibits, the lunar capsules, and related planetary models. Kate was similarly engaged. She fell in love with Randy and demanded that he carry her everywhere, pointing eagerly in the direction she wished him to take her. She liked the planetary exhibits as well. Any round object that was red she called “apple” and any round object that was not red was “ball.” Randy went from picture to picture asking her “what’s that?” and found her to be quite reliable in her answers.
Some artifacts from National Archives were being displayed at Air and Space while Archives is under renovation. (Isn’t it always under renovation?) This was an added bonus and allowed us to see Lincoln’s Top Hat, Louis Armstrong’s cornet, costumes from The Wizard of Oz, the original C3-PO and R2-D2, and Jim Henson’s Kermit, among other things.
Above is a sample of the original penicillin mold. Way cool.

The bracelet was worn by Alice Paul. The charms are each of the 13 states that ratified the ERA in 1972. Click on the picture to read the text, if you can.
Katherine shows Kate the original Teddy Bear.
Above are Archie Bunker’s Chair, Carrie Bradshaw’s Computer, the “Puffy” shirt from Seinfield, and Mr. Rodger’s red sweater. (Couldn’t help but think “one of these things is not like the other.”)
Will in front of the Capital. And this time, he’s AWAKE!
Such a pretty day — and I loved the big red tour bus driving across.
Randy with Kate.
Will explains to Randy the finer points of walking. Or something. Randy must have been exhausted by the end of the day.
This time, Will was much more enthusiastic about the dinosaur bones. But he still liked the aquatic creatures much, much more than the land-dwellers.
See Randy and Kate walking toward the castle?
Pictures of the four of us in front of the Capital.

Great day, great friends, great visit!

These were the few that don’t feature someone with an airway being blocked, a finger up a nose or in a mouth, and eyes generally looking in some sort of almost the same direction.

Paul and I enjoyed an evening in downtown Fredericksburg. Short stroll around Caroline Street, Dinner at Sammy’s T’s, ice cream at Lee’s Homemade Parlor, and some artsy-fartsy photography. It was like getting a mental massage — so nice to be out, without the kids, look out the camera, and just enjoy the view.





Book binding. Fun local bookstore where I found copies of two fun kids’ books — used and on sale — for a bargain! I wish we could have spent more time there. This manager was nice enough to let me photograph him as he bound a book.