D.C. Recap (Day IV)

Recently got back from taking a few days off to hit Washington, D.C. This is the last in a series of posts about how it went.

Our last day in D.C. was pretty similar to the others: subways, museums, food, all that. But a few things stood out, namely a pretty grueling march we did around the national mall to check out the sights. Trying to reconstruct our route and think it was something like Smithsonian à Capital à Lincoln Memorial à Viet Nam wall àSmithsonian subway stop. Take a look at the photo, imagine it's 100 degrees and that you're carrying an eleven-month old and you've pretty much got the picture. It was hot. It was tiring.

At this point, the biggest issue we were having with Babe-O was keeping her hydrated. She wasn't really nursing during the day and she was sweating quite a bit. She tended to snub her cup of water and we were getting pretty worried given how little she was drinking and how few wet diapers we changed. It was the fourth day of the trip when we really figured out how to keep her hydrated. The answer turned out to be bottled water. This is from a kid who never took a baby bottle and immediately preferred a cup with a straw over a sippy cup or anything else. As much as we struggled to get her to drink, it turned out that all we needed to do was share the water that we were drinking. All you had to do was hold up the aquafina bottle and she would grab it with both hands and tip it to her mouth. With a little gentle assistance to keep her from drenching herself she would drink more than enough. We stopped often and let her drink and she went through just about a whole bottle of water during the last bit of the day when we did the most walking. Cool kid.

Anyway, all of our trudging around and aquafina drinking finally landed our sweaty butts at the Lincoln Memorial. Unless you've been there, it's tough to appreciate just how big and impressive the thing is. The seated Lincoln is probably 20 feet tall. At this point, Babe-O was (mercifully) in her stroller, so we wheeled her up to the statue to take a look. Her eyes got big and she looked up at it, gesturing with her hands and babbling away. For a few minutes she pointed, shook her hands, and yammered on about the statue. It was stinking adorable and very cool that she seemed to appreciate the thing.

The memorial was our farthest destination and it wasn't until we got there that we realized that the nearest subway stop was all the way back where we started, near the Smithsonian. At this point we were all pretty beat and Babe-O was starting to fuss. It took a lot of effort, but by mixing things up a little on the walk back to the metro, we managed to keep her happily distracted. I took her out of the stroller and ran around with her quite a bit, holding her up over my head, letting her ride on my shoulders, and generally bounced her all over the place as we walked back. The extra work of tossing her up in the air and jogging back and forth while the others walked thoroughly kicked my ass, but it was well worth it to keep a happy kid all the way through the home stretch of the trip.

In the small favor of all small favors, as soon as we got to the subway station our train was waiting for us and we easily hopped on and zipped back to the hotel. The walk from the subway to the hotel was not quite as easy and Babe-O insisted on being held by her Mom for that last little bit. That was okay, though. By that time it was well past her bedtime and she was as tired as the rest of us.

Once we got back to our rooms, Mom-O hopped in the shower and I took Babe-O for her bath. Once she was all cleaned up I passed her back to Mom-O and MIL-O and hopped into the car to zip across town just in time to beat last call at that little Italian joint where we had eaten on the first night. I brought back a pizza, which we ate before packing up the car and going to bed.

The next day, we got up at about 5 a.m. to get back on the road. Once again, Babe-O woke up at almost exactly the halfway point, which was the same exit she needed to stop at on the way there. We were a little thrown off that it was still only about 9 a.m. as we were looking for lunch food, but managed to get a decent bite/stretch at eat-n-park. Babe-O and I ate pretty quickly and headed out to the parking lot to stretch our legs while the ladies finished up.

While out there, we were lucky enough to spot a parked Porsche 911 Carrera, which Babe-O had never seen before. Introductions were clearly in order. Just as we were kneeling way too close to the car so that I could show Babe-O the independent exhaust tracts, the owner walked out, probably right after gulping down the last of his coffee after spotting us through the window looking underneath his car. He was very friendly and understanding as I thanked him for letting my little girl catch a glimpse of a really impressive vehicle. As an experience, the car was at least as valuable to her development as that Van Gogh she had swatted earlier in the day at the museum (oops! painting pictured).

After that we got back in the car and made it home with no trouble, Babe-O sleeping most of the way. I made it back to the office a little after noon and managed to get all caught up on being away by the time I left at the end of the day. The half-day back after a vacation was a good idea – can't recommend that highly enough.

Well, that's the D.C. story. I'm sure I left a lot out, but I think I hit the high points pretty well. The whole thing brought me closer to Babe-O and it was a just plain incredible experience. It was very cool to hang out with her 24/7 with minimal distraction from work and other obligations. Plus, now we know that Babe-O can handle herself on the road and in the city, which makes me really excited to start going other similar stuff with her – both big trips like this one and smaller ones closer to home. Two thumbs, way up, big time.