a big trip

after three years of assuring kevin's family that we'd see them soon, we finally got brave enough to make the trip to washington dc. i wish i could be less balloons and lollipops about it for sheer sake of narrative interest, but man, we had a great time. the actual to and fro was awful, and i'll get to that, but it was pure joy watching violet have such a ball with the family she had mostly known through photos.

so here she is with airplane distractor #1: fruit and cheese box. there's never a happier "cheese!" than one with an actual mouthful of cheese.

but let me rewind for a sec to say that we nearly missed our outbound flight. as usual, kevin's wildly delusional idea that we needed to leave the house before 5:30am for our 8:40am flight turned out to be something less than delusional -- like, shall we say, accurate? i think all these years of booking complicated trips for my jet-setting boss (who can arrive at the airport ten minutes before a flight, wiggle her nose, and appear in seat 2b) has warped my perception of what it's like for us plebes. so here we are, in the middle of the swarm, clearly not going to make our flight, and this brash old dude sees kevin sweating and me crying and violet screaming about her new shoe that's fallen off who knows where, and this man rallies the crowd, who may or may not have "hear hear-d" as he grandly swung open the rope and let us cut. and maybe i'm tall-telling it a little, but truly, most of the people in that line were kind, kinder people than me, and it made me want to be kinder too.

the rest of the outbound travel was uneventful. violet had her antsy moments but was mostly well behaved on the flights. we had a stockpile of new toys and books she'd never seen before, along with lots of new max & ruby and mickey mouse clubhouse episodes loaded on the kindle, and of course the tray table was a big hit. (on the topic of toddler travel tips, let me put in a special plug for the wikki stix book. i was most worried about takeoff of the second leg of our way home because it was so late and i knew she'd be tired, and because it's a good half-hour stretch without electronic entertainment options. the wikki stix, which she had never seen before, were perfect.) the biggest hit, however, had to have been the moving walkways during our layover in minneapolis. she ran and ran and ran! or, as she would say, yan and yan and yan!

upon arrival at dulles came the long awaited cute meet with her only girl cousin (of the kid cousins), reese, age 7. i can't overstate the adorbs that was them hanging out all week.

it didn't occur to me until this trip that violet doesn't really spend any time with older kids. while her willingness to play without me or kevin actually there in the room (either as participant or audience) continues to grow exponentially, i was pretty amazed at how she would just disappear with reese for hours. they (illicitly) jumped on the blow-up mattress downstairs while kevin's sister and i had coffee talk. they played wilson the sea monster (/labradoodle) on their ship (/couch) for ages. we didn't make any concerted effort to adjust violet to eastern time, and she was usually ready for bed between 10:30 and 11pm, which meant a happy reese got to stay up late. this was especially awesome on july 4th, when uncle lonn set off a bunch of fireworks on the golf course that is essentially their backyard. violet's "i don't yike fireworks" quickly turned to "i yike fireworks a yittle bit" to "more fireworks, unkuh yonn."

throwing chronology to the wind (because let's face it, if i don't pound out this post, it's never going to happen, and i want it on record for me to get misty over in my empty nest), july 4th was just the kind of summer's day i would dream about while pregnant -- loved ones gathered and time slowed down. uncle dan and aunt elizabeth belong to the army navy country club and generously hosted everyone for a day of swimming pools, carnival games, bounce house, bbq, giant ice cream sammies

and everything else you'd imagine was there. i was watching dozens of sticky-faced kids running wild around the perfectly manicured tennis courts before the staff finally had to call disperse, and i was just thinking YES. THIS. which is silly, i realize, because it's an easy day for anyone to enjoy, whether they have a kid in the throng or not, and i'm sure there were plenty of people happy they weren't in my shoes when i was sprinting across three tennis courts after our lunatic child as she made a break for the furthest exit. i did catch her, but i think i've lost the point i was trying to make. something about how a day like that is the same as it's always been, really, but i do so enjoy watching violet in the throng, finding her place in the world, and in her family.

she was thrilled to be reunited with grandma linden

and it was her first time meeting grandpa chick

her first time meeting cousin declan, age 5

and her first time meeting cousin noah, age 1.

among other firsts was attending her first play, a staged production of dr. seuss's cat and the hat, at a really cool little place called the adventure theater. i was impressed by how many kids stayed captivated for the 45 minutes.

violet was nervous yet excited to meet sally afterwards

but she was too shy to go up to the boy. while it continues to blow my mind that she's essentially blushing and crushing on boys at age 2, i do hope that this particular shyness will carry on into her teen years.

we made it downtown a couple of days, once to the national building museum, the brilliant recommendation of my friend taryn, who i was very excited to catch up with

and who is adorably pregnant here with her third son. taryn even got us special tickets to the "building zone" playroom, which violet enjoyed, as she did a room filled with foam things

a room of miniatures, the cafe, and perhaps most of all, the lobby.

another day we ventured to the natural history museum, where reese and violet's favorite attraction was the glass elevator. i should open my own play place that's just like a giant lobby connected to service elevators filled with tupperware. dinosaur bones? they're pretty cool. but an abandoned warehouse? magic!

also magic? the tot park -- just a regular little park, but filled with abandoned toys. it's tucked between beautiful residential buildings in old town, and perfect for toddlers with its enclosed perimeter. violet was having her grumpiest day, by far, and was crying that she didn't want to go to the park, until she got there, and then she didn't want to leave.

my real objective in taking her to old town was getting ice cream around the corner, and i wasn't going to let a little crankiness deter me. there are actually two parlors directly across the street from one another, and we made sure to patronize both on different days. at pop's, violet selected a flavor called "the cavity" which was vanilla with butterfingers, m&ms and snickers. it ruled. i had been hoping for a third trip to my favorite soft-serve shack in the world, hovermale's, but violet protested, "i want ice keem where we sit inside. i don't want a shack!" how did she get so highfalutin? (side anecdote: we were picking up dessert to bring to a party the other day, and violet looked at the bakery's four flavors of macarons and declared, "they don't have as many colors as bottega louie." the cashier smirked at me. i smirked at myself.) still, violet certainly didn't reject the hovermale's once her cone was in hand, day one or day two!

so i got my wish, and kevin got his: blue crabs at the quarterdeck. favorite pic of the trip:

violet loved cracking the crabs with her mallet

but not as much as she loved declan. ha!

sorting through our vacation photos and recalling all of the incredible hospitality has put me in too good a mood to want to recount much of the drama of our return flights home. there were thunderstorms, and we missed our connection in minneapolis. we thought we'd be stuck there, and that kevin would miss his first day of work, but we ended up rebooked on the last flight out, which was delayed and delayed and delayed again. luckily the minneapolis airport is rad

and wine, you know, exists. we got back to los angeles after midnight, and kevin got up in the morning and wrote jokes. paid jokes! we even found a vacation pic with all three of us in the same frame. all unpaid jokes aside, i'm counting blessings.