Anya’s aunt sent her a pretty dress and a zany swimsuit for her birthday. When Anya’s teacher told the class they’d get to play in the sprinklers the next afternoon, Anya knew right away what she was going to wear.

I’m not a big stickler about what Anya wears out of (or in) the house. My requirements are that whatever it is be mostly clean and mostly fit and not be so out of season as to cause fear of heat stroke or frostbite to rise in my heart. So, when Anya came out of her bedroom that morning in just her swimsuit, I paused for a bit. I really did want her to wear a bit more than a swimsuit to school, but I wasn’t sure how to say it without making a big deal out of it. Eventually I somehow managed to convince her that it would probably be nice to wear a dress or something over it until that afternoon when the sprinklers came out.

This is what she came up with.

In case you can’t tell, in addition to her swimsuit, she is wearing a tie-dyed tank top UNDERNEATH the suit and a froofy sparkly skirt pulled up under the tutu on the suit. This kid rocks.

This year for Anya’s birthday party (which was over a month ago, yes), we shared the day with another little girl from school whose birthday is only a few days before Anya’s. They are in different classes, but nearly everyone Anya wanted to invite, the other girl wanted to invite, too, so it seemed like a good way to keep everyone from being over-birthdayed. It was sort of strange to coordinate with another family, especially since we parents don’t know each other all that well. Luckily one thing we two moms had in common was a fairly laid back approach to the event.

I’m not sure if we didn’t do a theme because it would have been tough to get both girls to agree on something or because we moms just didn’t feel like it. Either way, we didn’t have any sort of theme other than lets have some fun! We held the party at the school, and it was definitely nice to not have to worry about having a bunch of people over (no extra cleaning!). Plus there was lots of room for the kids to run around outside (until it started raining, at least).

If you are considering holding a joint birthday party for your child, I will warn you about one thing. Present-opening time is CHAOS. (Perhaps this is a look at what it’s like to have two kids at Christmas?)

Each birthday girl had her own cake. I suppose (going back to the theme thing) if we’d had a theme, we could have made one giant sheet cake, but since we didn’t and since both girls had different ideas about what they wanted and since there were going to be a LOT of people there, we had two cakes. For about two weeks before the event, Anya insisted she wanted a strawberry cake. I even pureed up the last of our frozen garden strawberries to make one, but before I got to that point she changed her mind. She wanted a chocolate cake, of course. I had planned to make the strawberry cake from scratch, but when we switched to chocolate for some reason I felt the need to go with a box mix. We got to the store and, yup, she changed her mind again. She wanted a yellow cake. With chocolate frosting. And strawberries on top. So, I guess in a way all her ideas were mixed into one cake.

We made a two layer cake, but I’d planned on a big sheet cake so we had extra batter. A few cupcakes and a tiny space ship cake later, the batter (GREEN) was in the oven. After it cooled, which took FOREVER according to Anya, we frosted it and went to sleep. What a day!

The next morning, I whipped up some frosting and colored it according to Anya’s wishes. I filled up the decorating bags, and then Anya took over. I did help her squeeze the frosting out on the main cake, but she did all the designing. I was really impressed with how well she did. When she was satisfied with the frosting decoration, she added strawberries, and then TADA!

Anya decorated the cupcakes completely on her own. I got distracted doing something else, and then I turned around and BOOM. She was done. The cake was awesome, but the cupcakes were even more fabulously decorated. Perhaps from now on I should have her make my birthday cakes instead of Andy?

Her real birthday was on a school day, so we made some chocolate chip cookies to take to class.

Then we skipped out early, and Anya, Gramma, Grampa and I did what every normal person does for a 6-year-old’s birthday. We went to a plant nursery. What? Don’t you celebrate birthdays with plants? (I remember one birthday of mine about ten years ago, some of my friends in MI kidnapped me and took me to a nursery for my birthday. One of the plants I got that day is growing right now in my backyard, and I think of those friends every time I see it.) This nursery had about a dozen greenhouses in two rows, each with a number on it. Anya ran from greenhouse to greenhouse (in order, of course!) and squealed when she entered each one. She picked out some tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, cucumbers, herbs, and a LOT of different kinds of flowers.

That night we opened a few more presents.

And played with some presents.

And went to sleep happy.

When we last saw our heroes, they were bravely…sleeping.

On our last full day in DC, we awoke and set off in search of food. (I will now take a moment to reflect on how, in such a big city, there are surprisingly few restaurants open on weekend mornings.) We decided to head in the direction of our target, the Museum of Fine Art, and hope that we would stumble across some place to eat. During our travels, we saw and heard our first real-live DC protesters marching along, “Hey! Obama! We don’t need your *mumblemumblemumblesomethingthatrhymeswithobama!”

We ended up in an ORGANIC bistroy-chain-type place. Everything was ORGANIC. The staff wore shirts that said ORGANIC. The menu couldn’t just say, “Everything here is organic.” No, it had to list that the ORGANIC french toast was made from ORGANIC bread made from ORGANIC grains and the syrup was ORGANIC and the water was ORGANIC and the tables and the silverware and the lights and the doorknobs were ORGANIC. The food was good, but the tables were crammed in too closely and as we left, my big ORGANIC butt nearly took out the ORGANIC beverages of our neighboring ORGANIC diners. HA.

Now it is time for a random geeky reference: Look! We found the Tree of Gondor!

We made it to the museum, and the first five minutes were good, but I really should have taken it as a sign we should turn around and leave when I set off an alarm and Andy got reprimanded by a guard (two separate incidents) all before we’d left the first exhibit.

That first exhibit had fancy, old furniture. I was hoping I’d find some items decorated with quilling, but when I saw the embroidered fire screen, I figured that was interesting enough for closer inspection. I leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaned towards the screen to check out the stitching close up and then BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! I jumped back and when no one tackled me to the ground I figured I would survive and quickly moved away from the motion sensor guarding the embroidery. I met back up with Andy and Anya just as Andy was putting Anya up on his shoulders so she could peer into a fancy, old game table (checkers AND backgammon!). A guard boomed, “You can’t do that.” Andy put Anya down and there was much, “I’m sorry! She’s short!” The guard glared (he’d probably seen/heard me set off the alarm), and we raced out.

We behaved for a while and looked at all sorts of neat paintings and sculptures and whatnots from olden days. Anya really liked the Degas ballerina sculptures. I really liked the super old books. I’m not sure what Andy really liked, but I’m guessing the naked lady statues. After wandering the mazey building for a while, Anya and I crashed on a couch and waited for Andy to finish exploring. That’s when things really started to get bad. The kid entered meltdown mode.

[In this photo, Anya had not yet melted. I don’t like taking photos in art museums, but in this central atrium place it seemed okay. I do like photos in my posts.]

There are few places actually good for a five-year-old to have a meltdown. The middle of an art museum is definitely not one of them. I had no idea where Andy was, I couldn’t leave the building because we’d checked our coats and Andy had the tickets, people were glaring, the guard was staring, and I was about to scream. I picked up the very unhappy kid and tried to figure out how to get out. (Did I mention the building was a maze?) We made it back to the lobby, I texted Andy “HELP. COME NOW” and I tried to contain the beast until Andy arrived. Thankfully, I didn’t set off any alarms, no guards boomed at me, and Andy arrived before I went to find out if the coat check room took kids.

Andy had been looking forward to this museum the whole trip, and we waited until the last day because a new exhibition was opening that he wanted to see. So, I let him stay and finish up while the kid and I headed back to the hotel. I think she screamed for 15 minutes. I don’t really remember what happened after we got back to the hotel, but I am pretty sure it involved jellybeans and a nap.

[Here’s some art from the hotel. I’m putting the picture here because I thought this post needed more pictures, and I was just talking about art and the hotel. Doesn’t this look like someone slapped a bunch of scrapbook paper on a canvas and framed it?]

Naps make everything better. Dinner is good, too. We decided to try an Italian place near the hotel. The hotel people had said it was “somewhat” child friendly. When we walked in with a kid, I think the staff tried to use their collective mind power to get us to leave. But then the girl with the blue hair and a cow costume came in, and the staff had to divert their super powers…leaving us to have our dinner in psychic peace.

We decided to take the metro to our last museum of the trip, and as we zipped along in warmth and relative comfort I found myself wondering, “WHY haven’t we been taking the metro the whole time???” Alas, our destination was a sad one because the Air and Space Museum was not among those open late on weekends. We peered through the windows a bit and then, after promising Anya we’d see it first the next time we visited DC, we marched back across the mall to the Natural History Museum, which was still open.

We only had about an hour, and we spent it in the history of humans area. Anya was fascinated with ancient humans, and we stayed until we heard that boomy voice all security guards must have as a prerequisite for employment: “CLOSING TIME!” Before we left, though, we did manage to get pictures made of what we’d look like if we had been early humans.

It was all downhill from there. Eating cold leftovers in the hotel room, folding dirty laundry so it would fit in the luggage, stashing the fancy schmancy soap and lotion in our high tech cosmetic case — the ziplock bag. Sleeping, waking, metro to Union Station, back on the bus, back home, barfing in the grocery store, barfing in the car, and, of course, a nap.

The End.

I started the day with a bubble bath, and then we were off to The Hamilton for brunch. They seated us in a booth with doors. DOORS. The booth had doors. I suppose when you ask the concierge at the fancy schmancy hotel where a good place to eat is, you are going to be sent to fancy schmancy restaurants where the booths have doors. Surprisingly, the meal didn’t cost all that much more than a chain, but it was sooo much better. Sometimes I find myself day dreaming about that french toast with the lake of buttery syrup on top. (And yes, we did close the doors.)

Our first museum of the day was the Museum of American History, or as Anya called it, “The Place with the Ruby Red Slippers.” Half of the museum is under construction, and I was worried the slippers wouldn’t be on exhibit. We wandered around in war exhibits for a loooong time. I think one floor was all war. My favorite part of the war floor was all the clothing exhibits. This surprised me a bit ’cause I’m not a clothes person, but the embroidery and other detail work really caught my attention.

Finally we found what we’d been looking for…the slippers! YAY! Anya was being a goober, though, and I think I bribed her with two pounds of twizzlers to get her to pose for this photo.

In the same area, I also found my favorite part of the non-war floor: Kermit!

For some reason on this day we had trouble keeping together as a group, and so while I analyzed Julia Child’s kitchen, the kid and the dude went off somewhere else. I’m not sure where. I finished and hit the gift store, where the other two later joined me. The entire time we were in DC, we only bought two souvenirs: a ruby slipper magnet and a paddle ball thingy for the kid. How we managed to escape without any t-shirts or post cards or ball caps or stuffed animals or whatever, I’m not sure.

Back to the hotel for a nap, and then we were off to the second museum of the day. First, though, we had to stop at the carousel, on which Anya “wheeee’d” for the entire ride.

Then we were on to a sculpture museum, which also had non-sculpture stuff. Most of the stuff inside was that crazy modern art where you paint a canvas blue and say VOILA. Still it was fun, and we all agreed that the coolest things were the snake made of backpacks winding around the ceiling of one floor and these great zodiac statues outside.

We had dinner reservations, and so we had to practically run allllllll the way across town to get to the Old Ebbitt Grill on time. When we arrived the place was packed, but we were shown right to our table. Yay for reservations! [I’d like to take a moment here to talk about fabric. In particular I’d like to talk about how vinyl-like fabrics (that is to say smooth fabrics) really are key to successful seating in booths. When booth benches are upholstered in, say, fuzzy velvet-like fabrics, the ability to scoot across the seat vanishes.] Anya says this place has the best mac and cheese EVER, and although I wasn’t too keen on my dinner, the dessert was awesome. I really should have listened to the waiter when I ordered my entree because he was right on with dessert. Oh well.

We all rolled back to the hotel, stopping briefly for the required tourist shot outside the White House.

Back at the hotel, Andy and Anya took bubble baths, I did some crewel work, and then we all crashed.

To be continued….

One great thing about Anya’s school is that we get lots of breaks. We are now finishing up a week-long mid-winter break, and although I am most definitely glad to return to our regularly scheduled program, I am also most definitely glad to have had the time off to explore new places with my family.

A few months ago, Anya’s teacher sent home a dinosaur book in Anya’s homework bag. In the book, the main character goes to a super cool museum jam packed with dinosaur fossils. Andy and I wondered if the book was based on a real place, and if it was could we go there?? Turns out the museum is real and it is in New York City. We pondered for a while how we could make that trip happen, but we decided it wasn’t doable right now. However, there are these pretty cool museums in this little town nearby called Washington, D.C.

When I realized that mid-winter break was coming up, I suggested to Andy that we maybe go to DC. He jumped on the idea, and the next thing I knew, he’d reserved a hotel and figured out which bus (YES BUS) we’d take to get there. I’m not sure which excited Anya more: the idea of going to DC or the idea of riding a bus for a long trip. I know what did not excite me: waking up at 1:30 am to drive to town to sit in the cold and wait for the bus to show up.

Buses are nice. Why don’t more people travel by bus? (Maybe that waking up at 1:30 am?) I get that it’s not the best thing if you’ve got a baby or a gaggle of kids or if you are on crutches or if you have a ton of money and can fly everywhere or if you need to pee every hour. It is so nice, though, to sit back and chill and let someone else do the driving. On the way there, we all three slept. On the way back, we played cards together. All the passengers were quiet and respectful and the bathroom didn’t stink and there was wifi. Megabus, you have my vote.

We arrived in DC around 7:30 am. Yay! Rush hour! The bus dropped us off at Union Station, and we had to get on the metro subway thingy to get to the hotel. There are LOTS of escalators involved with the subway. Escalators are scary. On the first one we encountered, Anya freaked out a bit. Andy went first, and Anya was supposed to go second, with me following behind. She stepped on and I stepped on and she stepped back off and then there Andy and I were going down the escalator with Anya at the top holding up traffic. (Did I mention it was rush hour?) I was turned around calling up to Anya trying to get her to step on, and the next thing I know THUNK. My shoe caught at the bottom where the escalator swallows the belt to send it back up and around. The good thing is that (unlike my in life-long fears of being eaten by an escalator) I wasn’t sucked into the escalator’s teeth. The bad thing is that (did I mention it was rush hour) my foot stopped the escalator. [Interesting Note: When we were leaving DC a few days later, that escalator still was not working. Oops.]

We emerged from the subway and after getting lost a few times and asking a hot dog vendor for directions, we made it to our hotel. They let us stash our bags there even though we couldn’t check in yet, and after Anya changed out of her pajamas we headed into the big city. The first museum on our list was, of course, the Museum of Natural History (aka The Dinosaur Museum). Turns out it didn’t open for a while, so we had breakfast in a food court at the old post office building and then headed back.

Pretty much the moment we cleared security at the museum, Anya took off skipping and squealing, “OOOO! LOOK AT THAT LOOK AT THAT LOOK AT THAT!” We saw sea creatures and mammals and mummies and gems and orchids

and REAL LIVE SCIENTISTS working with fossils in the fossil lab and baby butterflies and meteorites and a movie about our ancestors where we got to sit with one of our relatives

and of course we also saw dinosaurs. (No, this photo is not of a dinosaur, but it is a really old critter!)

Somewhere around the gems and mummies, we all started to crash. Luckily we were able to check into our hotel early. It was a super fancy hotel that Andy got some good deal on, and I think they maybe thought we were super fancy, too. But we aren’t. I felt a little out of place when the tall dude with the fancy coat and top hat opened the doors for us with a “Bonjour!” And then there were the super posh flower arrangements in the lobby. And the real live painting hanging over the bed in our room.

And the bathroom with a shower AND a tub AND a hairdryer in its own little cloth bag.

And then later? Some fancy-dressed dude brought us a little dessert plate because Andy’s good deal involved some sort of membership in a super-schmancy platinum diadem club or something.

The view from our windows was fascinating. I could watch folks working in the offices in the buildings across the street, and I could see people coming and going at the hotel entrance, and I could watch all the cars as evening rush hour came and went. After napping and munching and napping and looking out the windows and taking baths and napping, we went out in search of nail clippers, bubble bath, and soda. All three were conveniently found at a nearby CVS, which was on the other side of a small park with a neat monument and ducks and rats.

To be continued…

I hope I didn’t build up the anticipation too much with my last post. We didn’t actually do a huge redesign of Anya’s room in an HGTV sort of way. We didn’t repaint, we didn’t add accessories, we didn’t build a bookcase out of recycled soda bottles. Mostly? We moved stuff around.

Since I forgot to take a before picture of the room, those of you who haven’t seen her room will probably just say, “Ah. Okay.” There are probably only a very select few of you out there who have seen her room in all it’s “how do you get from the door to the bed” glory. For those of you who haven’t, I’ll lead you through a little visualization activity. Ready?

Close your eyes. Imagine a really messy kid room with all that junk from the previous photo (where it’s on the floor) on the floor of that kid’s room. [Hey, how are you reading this if your eyes are closed?] Add in a laundry basket of dress-up clothes, three armfuls of regular clothes (dirty, clean, who knows?),and a wheel barrow of stuffed animals. Got it? Good. You can open your eyes now.

So, without further ado, here is the Cleanly Swept (yes, we did actually sweep it) room of Anya:

Look! Floor! In fact, there is so much floor now, we really ought to get a rug. The truly magical part is that her room still looks like this.