Washington DC - Day 1

I’ve decided to start my blogging career with our trip with Washington DC for Scott to compete in The Nation’s Triathlon. We decided to take Morgan (4) with us. But as a result of a two-hour scream-fest driving home from Columbus this summer, we opted to leave our Zoe (1) with my parents.

This trip could have been the poster child for disaster – short time frame, traveling with a 4-year-old, said 4-year-old has a cold, potential for drowning in Potomac - and yet I have nothing of cataclysmic proportion to report.

Our trip starts off with a stop at the local deli for lunch, where Morgan asks if she can have the veggie tray with carrots, celery and broccoli. This is not my child. Then, when given the option of turkey, ham, or bologna sandwich, she chooses roast beef. Okay…and we’re off.

Roast beef sandwich finished, she asks for her veggies and is suddenly skeptical of the broccoli that she had only moments before been wildly asserting she loved. I make the mistake of saying “Looks good!” to which I am offered a piece to “try.” So I do. Yeah, still don’t like broccoli, but please give me props for not gagging, spitting it out into the glove compartment, and/or vomiting into my bag of chips. “Mmm.” Morgan takes one bite, also realizes it is nasty, and takes a swig of her chocolate milk. Still my child. She does finish the baby carrots, though. So maybe I won’t have to pump her too full of Flinstone vitamins in her youth.

Not only does Morgan not nap, she doesn’t even ask for a movie until we are an hour and a half out of DC. I can’t tell you what we did for the other four and a half hours to entertain her. She did remove just about every activity I had packed in her tote. And I vaguely remember some singing - her not me. Of course the Pennsylvania turnpike tunnel had her rapt attention for the entire sixty seconds it takes to complete. The only major problem was that I forgot her headphones, so she had to use my ear buds. Kids don’t like to stick things in their ears unless they are specifically told not to.

So we have entered the greater DC area and here’s where I see potential problem number two. The Mapquest directions indicate we will be proceeding to a “roundabout.” This will clearly add thirty minutes to our drive time. And though we did miss our “exit” on the first time around, we quickly compensate and only lose fifteen minutes – a decisive victory over the city planner (who I'm pretty sure was French so will hereafter be referred to as "Frenchy").

Since Morgan doesn’t remember the first vacation we took her on to Hilton Head at age 1, she considers this her first hotel stay. We have a small “suite” so here’s a quick run down on what impresses her: the appliances (“We can put things in the refrigerator! And here’s a dishwasher, so we can wash our dishes!”); the beds (“I have a bed and you and Daddy have a bed!”); the desk (“We can put Daddy’s computer here!”), etc. Now that we have had a complete inventory of the room contents, it’s time to settle in. Everything that was in her travel tote gets a spot on “her” bed.

And that is Day 1.

We stroll around town with our friends (Phil, Michelle and daughter Paige) to have a late dinner and are back in the hotel just a bit past primetime television. I get Morgan hooked up with a new movie and manage to watch the repeat of the Glee episode I missed on Wednesday. Bonus!

I call home to find out the devil’s spawn, AKA my darling Zoe, has been a complete angel for Nana and Papa – including standing in line with them for an hour at a funeral home. Of course she did.

I’m in bed a little after ten.