I’ve been spending more effort than is probably reasonable on our first-year balcony garden. I keep reading stories about novice gardeners facing crushing failure in the early run of things – root rot, fungus and other killers destroying entire bounties before they ever get going.  For some reason, despite all the warnings, I’ve jumped head-long into the endeavor anyway.  I’ve found myself gardening on the balcony late into the night and as early as 5AM, right before we hit the road to Vermont.

When we found our new apartment the first thing I fell in love with was this balcony.  It’s pretty big by DC standards at five-by-fourteen feet, and I knew from the beginning that I wanted to have it almost comically over-flowing with plants.  I’m well on my way to fulfilling that vision, having already planted mint, two kinds of basil, parsley, cilantro, peppers, two kinds of tomatoes, clematis, hydrangea, three types of lettuce, lavender, thyme and chives, with a packet of rosemary seeds waiting for our next round of peat pellets.  Sure it’s a little ambitious – so was carrying (and then using) nearly six cubic feet of potting soil up to our apartment – but what’s a hobby if it’s not completely overwhelming at times?

Save for a few items I’ve grown everything from seed.  Friends of ours got us a little Jiffy Greenhouse and a pack of peat pellets to get started and we’ve since purchased about 100 replacement pellets after exhausting the initial round that came with the set.  The system is great for beginners.  My from-seed success rate far exceeds the duds.

We’ve even begun improvising our own mini greenhouses using recycled spinach and lettuce containers:

I’ve mentioned before in regards to our efforts at Camp Davis, but I’m really surprised at how gardening has grabbed my attention.  If ever there was a hobby that is terrible for someone with my attention span and need for instant gratification, gardening would be it.  But like I’ve said, having kids really changed my perspective on this.  Two weeks to germination suddenly fits my concept of instant gratification, whereas before it was a good indication that I’d lose interest quickly.

My dad recently reminded me that my grandfather, when he wasn’t working his day job as a tug boat engineer, loved to garden.  That’s serious dedication when you consider that he only had one Sunday off every other week.  Lucky for me my schedule is a bit more… accommodating to pursuing hobbies of this kind.  Either way it’s kinda special to enjoy a bond like this with a loved one whose been gone since I was in middle school.  Hopefully I’ll learn a thing or two along the way and be able to pass some know-how along to the next generation.

Whatever perennials live and thrive here on our balcony this summer will be permanently transplanted to Camp Davis in the early fall after the summer heat has ended but while the soil is still warm.  I have this image in my head of rosemary and lavender growing everywhere at Camp D, and this annual balcony incubator program we’re starting here in DC might just do the trick.

We’re fresh back from our weekend in Vermont, a truly whirlwind tour if there ever was one.  Four days total, over a thousand car miles, nearly as many adult beverages and even more pregnant lady* belly laughs later and we can say it was an absolutely wonderful excursion.

*Not Natalie.  Our hosts Rosie and Jason are expecting their second in June.

We enjoyed a serious Camp Davis vibe the whole time, cooking things from scratch (like gluten-free biscuits at 6AM?), enjoying good booze and staying in our friend’s almost 130 year old farm house that has a “Whiskey Room” equipped with wing-back chairs and an old-timey record player (totally stealing this idea, by the way).

The Vermont scenery is breathtaking and that organic, homesteading, DIY chicken raising attitude permeates everything and seemingly everyone.  We visited a local farm to pick up our meals for the weekend, ate Fiddlehead Ferns straight from the woods, Ben & Jerry’s in downtown Burlington and even did a little gardening ourselves once the weather cleared.  For only really visiting just over 48 hours, we fell for the place hard.  If not for hearing about the threat of snow the day we left (in mid-May, mind you), I could see myself living there in a heartbeat.  Alas, I’m far too much of a cold-weather-wimp.

Loren, it seems, is every bit the city kid as we worried.  His funny toddler accent had him marveling at our hosts’ “Jean” Deere tractor (a French import?) and in awe of the “haircut” it gave the grass.  He’s a worldly one I suppose.

We do the weekend jaunts to Camp Davis pretty regularly.  It’s a mere two hours from home which isn’t too painful.  We’ve also done the road trip marathon to Minnesota where we drove for several days but were able to vacation for almost three weeks before coming back home.  With our trip to Vermont we melded the two concepts: a weekend trip with marathon driving.

And somehow it just worked.  The nine hour drive felt, in fact, perfectly reasonable.  We left from DC for Vermont early Friday morning – 6AM on the dot.  With long breaks and a few wrong turns we arrived at our destination just outside Burlington a little after 5PM, well in time for happy hour, which is convenient, because there’s nothing quite like a Heady Topper to help you forget you just drove 500 miles.  (And yes, the hype is well earned.  There is a reason those beers are so hard to find outside of Vermont – they can’t make it past the locals for distribution.)

Our silly hope that the kids would transition seamlessly from bed to car seat wasn’t entirely off base.  They woke up, of course (Loren even pressed the buttons on the elevator as predicted), and they stayed up.  However, by 7:30 both were fast asleep again.  And they remained that way until 10AM.  That long snooze made the first four-hour leg of the trip seem like a piece of cake.  More important, since the kids basically slept the whole time they weren’t too upset to get back in the car after the first break.  To them it might have felt like they were just getting started.

Despite our assumptions that the drive home would be worse just because the drive up was so smooth, everything went well once again.  Like parents of children who sleep through the night from day one, this has led us to the conclusion that we have some sort of expertise in the area that extends beyond blind luck.

We’ll never know what specific combination of events made the trip work so well, but we noticed a few things that we think did more good than harm and we thought we’d share them:

1) Leave really early, or not, or even really late.  The timing of the first leg should have more to do with the regular sleep habits of the kids than anything else.  We left at 6AM both times.  This is somewhere between 1.5 to 2.5 hours ahead of when the kids normally wake up.  Because they kept themselves awake for a while after the initial transition, they fell asleep hard and made up the difference by sleeping a little longer into the morning than usual.

If we couldn’t leave early the next best alternative would be to leave right before their normal nap time of 1:30/2:00PM.  If that wouldn’t work, hit the road just before bed time.  They won’t sleep the whole way, but their sleep schedule is likely screwed anyway if you are traveling long distances.  But sleepy kids will give you a chance to drive in peace for a while, and that might be the next most important thing.

2) Withhold your bag of tricks as long as possible.  The kids have a little basket of cars and books between them for entertainment in the car.  We don’t have a DVD player, but this time around we borrowed a pair of books on CD from the library as a special treat.  We hyped them up to Loren before the trip, but didn’t play them for him until several hours into the second leg of the trip.  They improved his mood and by the time they were done we were ready for our next (and hopefully last) stop before arriving at our destination.

3) When in doubt, stop.  We realized along the way that holding out until that arbitrary stop time we set when we left the house was a losing battle.  At some point in a long trip like this the kids will start going insane.  If you can’t curb the meltdowns, just find a place to stop.  Ruthie is a great car kid, but everyone has a breaking point.  Eventually she was covered in graham cracker crumbs, refusing a bottle and throwing all her toys to the floor.  She was done.  So we just stopped.

You won’t regret it.  It might make the overall trip take a little longer, but when traveling long distances with kids the important thing is arriving at your destination with your sanity in tact (which is possible), not beating your personal best trip time (which isn’t).  It really is amazing what a pit stop will do to everyone’s attitude.  Give everyone a chance to stretch their legs, fill some bellies and change some diapers and a return to the car seat isn’t that bad after all.

4) Finally, stop at hardware stores, garden centers or hotels when you can.  Obviously you’ll have to find a gas station when you first pull off the highway, but after you fill up the tank jump back in the car and get to one of those other places.  Lowes and Home Depot are normally situated near interstate on-ramps and their bathrooms tend to be immaculate.  I don’t know why, but they just are.  No matter the weather, their large warehouses are nice place to get out and stretch the legs.  Loren loves running around and looking through all the tools and we were even able to shop for projects we knew we’d like to tackle when we went back home (paint swatches and Rosemary seeds for Camp Davis, check).

Hotels often have outdoor space for a nice picnic lunch, some even have casual restaurants if you need to buy a little something in a hurry (and again, the clean bathrooms).  And hey, if you need to bail on round two of the trip because the first was so terrible – just get a room for the night.

Our directions had us drive a little off the beaten path in eastern PA (we wanted to avoid the I-95 corridor almost entirely, which turned out to be a great decision).  As we traveled along a two lane state highway we passed several nurseries and garden centers.  On the way back to DC we planned to stop at one.  The maze-like greenhouses are perfect for a toddler to explore, and there is something rejuvenating about getting out of the stuffy car and finding yourself in the midst of thousands of plants.

–

None of these tips are fool-proof and like every other bit of child advice, the effectiveness is highly kid-dependent, but they certainly seem to help us.

The trip was so successful, in fact, that we’re thinking this is going to be more than once a year trip.  I hear Vermont is amazing in the fall, and if we take the train to Burlington we might even brave a winter visit.

Ruthie has officially crawled.  Forward.  For weeks she’d been scooting around on her butt, sneaking her way from one side of the room to the other.  Then came the rocking on all-fours, then the reverse worm/backward crawl.  And now it’s all forward progress, from DC to St. Olaf (or so I have to assume – we have to make up for Natalie breaking the generations of Um-Ya-Ya so she could stay close to her one-day baby’s daddy, but I digress).

The day it finally happened, Loren and I had spent a good chunk of the afternoon enticing her to crawl forward with a wind-up walking egg toy we got for Easter.  Ruthie would prop herself up on all-fours, rock around, lifting hands and knees, at points executing the downward dog position, then unintentionally pushing herself backward, farther away from the toy (talk about your body playing tricks on you).

I eventually lifted her up and gave her a break.  Her eating schedule has been out of sorts lately, a combination of the constant struggle with developmental milestones and teething.  It turns out she was really hungry, so I gave her a quick bottle on the couch next to Loren. A few minutes later and I let her back on to the floor, where she promptly barfed.

Competent Father (TM) that I am, I moved her a few feet away from the hot barf glob while I went to fetch a paper towel from the kitchen.  As I returned I watched Ruthie shift to her hands and knees and expertly crawl over to the mess so that she could poke it with her finger.

If I was ever curious, I can now say I know what it’s like to feel simultaneously the emotions of pride and disgust.

And just like that, we’ve entered the next chapter in babyhood.

–

Note:  We’re driving to see old friends up in Vermont tomorrow, because apparently we didn’t learn our long-distance-driving lesson last time.  We’re leaving the kids in their PJs and getting out of the house obnoxiously early tomorrow morning in some sort of delusional belief that they’ll just fall right back asleep in the car and wake up four hours later near NYC as if the day is only just beginning for them like usual.  Because Loren will totally let that happen.  This is the kid, after all, who immediately stands up the moment he is awake, and who will be ready to start the day the moment he hears the elevator bell ring – “I push the Number One with a star next to it” he’ll say through his pacifier.

We’re idiots, we know.  But we’ve come to the realization that if we can see someone twice a year, just every six months, we can consider that close and frequent contact to the point where it doesn’t even feel like we’ve missed a beat.  Vermont, Minnesota, they might as well be down the block.

I hope to explain this feeling more in-depth later, but of all the ways becoming a parent has changed me, my concept of Time is perhaps the most drastic.  Suddenly the days fly by like hours, I can spend a week seemingly looking for my jacket, and out of nowhere a month has gone by and it’s gone from Summer to Winter again.  I almost don’t want to go to bed for fear of what day it will be when I wake up.  And there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing I can do about it.

Actually, come to think of it, the only time that doesn’t seem to move faster is the time we spend in the car with screaming children.  That time moves in slow motion.  So we’re driving to Vermont for a long weekend to slow things down a bit I guess.

“Why don’t you get outside for a few minutes, take a walk.”  A nice gesture, the preemptive nature of which I could find humorous later, but I declined, opting instead for the solitude of our bedroom where I laid down on the bed with a pillow over my face and promptly fell asleep (despite downing nearly a pot of coffee throughout the day, the last cup of which I drank at 5PM).

An indecipherable amount of time later, Natalie calls for me to come lend a hand during the final stages of bath time   I never know whether to be grateful or resentful of the cheery wonderland I emerge to find following these abrupt changes of the guard.  Sure, I’m happy everyone is happy, that moods have changed and bellies were filled, that bath time appears successful and my wife didn’t have to endure the beating I took all afternoon.

But at the same time, W.T.Fuss everybody?  Where was this cooperation and joy earlier today when I was on the brink of losing my mind?  Where was the patience when I was making the dinner that I would later eat cold sitting on a stool in the bathroom?  Where were these “inside voices” when Loren decided that his response to Ruthie’s crying would be to shout directly in her face until he ran out of breath?  Now we’re laughing and making jokes, taking turns and sharing?  Now we’re following directions without a fight?

I basically dragged Loren the final block home from the library this morning.  It was to the point where I was ignoring him completely, clutching his hand as he wailed and cried and dragged his feet.  I laughed as we passed a woman walking toward us on the sidewalk.  She was kind enough to return the favor, with a smile and a look that said “I’ve been there, no judgment.”  Ruthie was on my chest in the carrier, and at the time still more-or-less content in her existence.  We’re always quite the scene.

It was early in the day.  I still had my sense of humor.

By the time Natalie got home it was gone, having jumped off the balcony Thelma & Louise-style along with my patience.

This is, unfortunately, our all-too-common Monday routine.  Our usual foursome, anchored by the presence of Mama all weekend, is suddenly an unstable three-legged table in her absence.  The kids’ reaction is predictable.  Some are better than others – I even did right by getting out of the house to the library this time – but I often find myself handing over the keys and passing out the moment reinforcements arrive.

This is how it will be until it isn’t.  Because by definition:

Insanity: Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.  See also: Parenting.

You can look it up.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinterest as much as the next guy,* but I gotta say, for all the great ideas and inspiration its offered, it has also taken keeping up with the Joneses to a whole new level.  No longer do you feel that appearances-competition from only your immediate neighbors, but you start to feel it from towns, states and countries away.  Now I’m keeping up with the Joneses, Johannsens and everybody else.

*Note: I probably love Pinterest a lot more than the next guy if we’re being specific (and honest) here.  More likely, I love Pinterest as much as your wife or girlfriend.  Of my most visited websites, according to my Google Chrome homepage, Pinterest actually comes in right ahead of SBNation and Sports Illustrated, in that order (which might explain that Fantasy Football championship drought I’m experiencing right now).  Pinterest, sports and sports.  I suppose if I didn’t split my time between two sports websites one might come out on top, but who knows.  Either way, I don’t really know what this says about me.  I’m un-label-able I guess.   

The pressure has gotten to the point where we don’t feel like we can just store crap without it being “pin-worthy.”  We’re leaving stuff un-contained while we search for that perfect wicker basket or old-timey milk crate, when the truth is we just need something to house random cleaners and chemicals under the bathroom sink.  So without further ado, here’s my totally Pinnable storage solution:

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a box of shit I’m never going to look at or display for others.  It lives under my bathroom sink next to a half-full (or empty, depending on your perspective on life and Pinterest) plastic bag of toilet paper rolls.

Not everything has to be Pinnable.  In this case, perfect isn’t really any better than good.

This week has been utterly surreal.  Things are moving forward, but unfortunately I’m going to have to leave you to with a cliff-hanger for now.  I have been informed that I can’t blog (etc) about the process as it  unfolds anymore.  So my lips are sealed until I get the green light or the hook.

Wish us luck.

Wait, WHAT??!?!

Needless to say, my head is buzzing with excitement today.  Any one of these is a singular event worthy of my total focus.  Combined, I am almost completely overwhelmed to the point of being at a loss for words (which is saying something if you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time).

I’ll get to the others later this week, but for now I’ll just try to tackle the biggest, most absurd and least likely to actually happen of these developments (so I have to assume, or the world is just crazy and I don’t get it anymore):  The reality show.  I was contacted last week by the casting folks for an upcoming show that intends to follow around “modern” stay-at-home dads.  They found me via my SlowMama posts.  We spoke for a half-hour about what I’m like and “why America might fall in love with Jimmy” (I kid you not, that was part of the interview, and my head now requires lubrication to fit through most standard door frames).  Things seemed to go pretty well, and despite having never actually considered such a possibility for even a second, I am now convinced that this is probably my life’s calling.  It’s funny how quickly I can get my hopes into something without previously knowing that it existed.

The chances of this actually happening are so small that I’m ok laying the jinx on it – because seriously, I am or hope to be many things, but reality TV sensation/pin-up DILF was never really one of them.  If it doesn’t happen, I’ll just say I was honored to be considered, cry myself to sleep and go back to speaking to Natalie on equal terms, no longer referring to myself in the third person or refusing to do household chores.

Of course, if it does happen….lvnekjvw;vbwjvbq.  It’s so ridiculous to even consider what it would mean or how things would be.  You can bet your bottom that I’d live-blog the whole thing (which probably wouldn’t make for the best television now that I think about it).

The big question, of course, is whether America is ready to invite my perpetually un-showered, borderline hermit, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants parenting into their households.  You’ll know as soon as I do.

In the meantime, I’m kicking into hyper-drive dreamer mode.  The extended family Davis Clan spin-off is already working its way around my brain.  I just need to figure out whether we’ll be liable for giving the language censorship guy carpal tunnel syndrome after they film the big all-siblings-on-deck family dinners.  George Carlin would blush.  And my dad would bang on the table, attempting (unsuccessfully) to bring us to order, while only rattling the silverware instead.

At long last, we had the weather to take to laying in the grass, squinting at clouds.  It didn’t last long (the squinting at clouds part – it was hurting the boy’s eyes), but we’re only just beginning.

We ate both lunch and dinner outside in the courtyard behind our building yesterday.  Apparently I was so excited for the opportunity that I dressed like our picnic blanket.  Oh well.

We’re still so fresh off this seemingly extended winter that I almost don’t know what to do with myself.  Wasn’t it just snowing?  I know I have a very recent picture of these blooms outside my window…

…when they were really snow puffs accumulating on the tree branches, and not actually the flowers I see now.

Of course, I’ll take pleasantly confused over disappointed and cold, any day of the week.

Pleasant confusion – that probably best describes my understanding of Ruthie’s recent milestones.

I’ve noted in several blog posts her general…contentedness when it comes to mobility.  Her approach to the subject, so it has seemed, was more or less, “eh.”  Ruthie is a happy baby by default.  I like to think my stellar stay-at-home parenting deserves all the credit, but I know better when she smiles at anyone and everyone we meet.

It’s all her.

But her calm demeanor was making it seem like she wasn’t particularly concerned about moving around.  Put her on her back in the middle of the floor, leave her to go shopping for a few hours, come back and she’d still be there, just chillin.  She could roll over, we’ve seen her do this several times.  She just preferred not to.

We didn’t necessarily mind it – that’s the big benefit of parenting a second child.  Everything is so much less dramatic.  It’s easier to  just let her grow without worrying about every little thing.  You question yourself less.  You question your baby less.  You realize that wondering “is there something wrong?” is an answer in itself.  If you have to ask the question, it means you don’t already know.  If you don’t already know, then things are probably fine.  When something is “wrong,” you know – you don’t have to wonder.

So you could imagine my surprise when the other day, without so much as noticing even a few failed attempts, Ruthie propped herself up on her hands and rotated on her belly a full 180 degrees.  It was so controlled and easy that it made me wonder if she’s been doing it all along.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it.  Where Loren took forever to sit up without assistance, Ruthie has surprisingly good balance.  She sits on her own for long periods of time, and recently began pulling herself unto her belly (and face), in an effort to grab for objects just beyond her reach.  Perhaps recognizing the potential dangers in this method (and after a few visits watching her friend Mae), she’s instead begun scooting around on her butt in pursuit of Loren’s toys, and with remarkable efficacy.

Ruthie has gone from almost entirely immobile to inconveniently free-wheeling in just a matter of weeks.  My days of having to worry about only one child’s whereabouts are coming to a close.

I get the feeling that these two kids are conspiring against me.

It’s time to baby proof again.

Being on a budget often requires more creativity than sacrifice.  That’s the optimist’s point of view, anyway.  I love polenta, for example, but for it being little more than ground corn those little polenta logs are surprisingly expensive.  Maybe it’s because polenta sounds fancy, maybe it’s because polenta is European in origin.

The truth is, I’ve never really figured out the difference between polenta and grits (despite eating plenty of both).  As best as I can tell, they part ways at name* and price.

*The name difference, of course, is nothing to sneeze at.  Polenta Cakes sound mouth-watering. Grit Cakes sound like something you get in the wheel well of your car after driving behind the salt truck.  That’s why I’m calling these “Polenta Cakes Made with Grits.”  It’s not perfect, but I think it’s better than the alternative.  

The above photo helps break it down.  Both products are seen here in 24-ounce packages, and at first glance the price difference of grits at $2.19 against polenta’s $2.99 isn’t all that significant.  However, polenta logs are “pre-cooked, ready to heat and eat”, and thus the 24-ounce package only yields six servings.  A 24-ounce container of grits, on the other hand, has 17 servings.  So really, you’re spending roughly 25% less on grits to get three times as much food.  Not bad.

The polenta cake is a great vessel and base for all sorts of wonderful dishes, and for the longest time I’ve wanted to see what happened if I substituted grits instead of it’s sexier cousin, but never got around to it.  That was a mistake.  Since we’re trying to cut back on groceries a bit, I figured there was no time like the present to give it a go.

Fried Polenta Cakes Made from Grits

Ingredients:
- 1 Cup Grits;
- 2 Cups Chicken Stock (preferably homemade, because it is better and cheaper than store bought);
- 1 TBS Extra Virgin Olive Oil, plus 1 tsp for skillet;
- 1 tsp coarse Salt; and
- 1 TBS chopped fresh Parsley (optional)

Preparation:  Bring stock to a boil in a medium sauce pan, add grits, olive oil and salt, then reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Once cooked, stir in chopped parsley and remove from stove.  Pour contents onto a large plate with shallow sides (or baking dish) – try to keep the grits no more than one-inch deep.  Leave uncovered in the fridge for one hour or until congealed and cooled.

Remove from fridge, slice into preferred shapes and sizes.

Fry in large pan (work in batches if needed to prevent over-crowding) over medium-high heat until brown, about three minutes per side.

Serve with anything.  Seriously, get creative.  We tried them topped-off with soy sauce and mirin glazed carrots, which was delicious.  My biggest concern was that the Cakes would crumble, but they held up well from preparation, on through cooking and while eating.

Each batch makes about double what you’d get out of one polenta log.  Naturally, we had plenty of leftovers.  That means the next morning we had the pleasure of serving them under fried eggs for breakfast.  Just a quick zap in the microwave and then a minute or two on the stove in the butter next to the eggs and they were every bit as good as the night before (probably better).

In hindsight, it should have been obvious.  We couldn’t go to bed at Natalie’s house after exchanging gifts Christmas Eve (their tradition) and wake up at my parent’s house for the Christmas morning festivities (ours), though for a while we certainly tried to have it both ways.  Add kids to the mix, limited space, early bedtimes, nap schedules, and a sudden fixation with finally “getting some damn sleep” and suddenly it really is true that you can never go home again, as the saying goes.

Easter has been no different.  In years past, Easter morning was a time to wake up and turn the house upside-down in search of our hidden baskets.  Mom and Dad were great Easter Bunnies (that’s who hides the baskets, right? I don’t fully understand the story for this holiday), though Mom’s decision to hide a basket in the dryer, while effective, was thwarted after someone unwittingly turned the thing on…Poor chocolate bunnies, never had a chance to have their heads bitten off…

Our current “tradition” is perhaps most notable for its complete lack of consistency.  I don’t think we’ve done the same thing twice since Loren was born.  One year we had my entire family out to Camp Davis for the weekend.  Looking at it, you probably wouldn’t immediately realize you could sleep 20-plus people in that place, but we made it work, even if we had to set up a cot or two in the kitchen.  The following year, fresh off the move into Kirk and Betsy’s apartment, we approached the holiday with significantly less ambition.

This year we hosted Natalie’s Dad and step-mom for lunch and egg dying.  It was just the right amount of low-key, yummy food and science for a Sunday at this point in our lives that it was perfect.  And to be honest, not having to leave the house was fantastic.  Because going to visit everyone else is great, but 30 minutes of car napping is no replacement for the two or three hour daily hibernation we’re accustomed to.

Not sure what that last one has to do with Easter…I do know that I’ll be eating egg salad and ham for weeks – not that I’m complaining.

Of course, we can’t allow ourselves a successful and laid-back holiday weekend without starting the following week in overly-ambitious fashion.  That’s why (and thanks to Natalie’s mom for the hook-up) we decided to go one last round of rabbit celebration with 35,000 of our closest friends at the White House Easter Egg Roll.

There were tons of great activities for the kids – live performers (a teen group I’d never heard of called The Wanted just about melted a pair of middle school girls standing next to us), the Easter Egg Roll itself, and egg hunts that Loren only semi-understood:

And celebrities.  Lots of them.  Like the “Super Meeders!”  Of course, Loren has a history of taking his time to warm up to these larger than life characters, so we took it slow, avoided the picture line and let Loren creep up beside them away from the spotlight.

But eventually we gave it a try.  And to our surprise, he was cool with it.

Natalie would later admit that she was a bit horrified by how well Loren knows all these different television characters.  What can I say? Daddy needed a babysitter during the move and maaaybe that baby sitter still makes a somewhat regular appearance in the mornings…Television, to the rescue!  Nat, don’t ask me super why.

Nevertheless, we’re still grooming him for bigger things:

And while the trip was more than a little tiring (four hours carrying Ruthie in the bjorn, lots of walking and a pair of metro trips took their toll), it made for a wonderful backdrop to a great afternoon.

Of course, this new “tradition” is somewhat unsustainable (tickets aren’t all that easy to come by).  So for 2014, it will be on to the next one, whatever that might be.