Exciting few days

The last few days have been pretty darn exciting. (I'm not even going to describe our trip on Tuesday to get an H1N1 flu vaccine that involved the kids and me waiting two and a half hours at a local middle school. All I'll say is that we were lucky that we were able to wait by a little grassy area where Teddy could run around with his soccer ball.)

To begin with, we saw the Wiggles live at the Verizon Center on Thursday night with some friends. If you're familiar with the Wiggles, you don't need any more information. If you aren't familiar with them, the Wiggles are four guys from Australia who sing catchy songs that really appeal to the toddler set. My introduction to the Wiggles came from the cousins in Philly who were big fans in their younger days, so much so that I actually recognize some of the songs when they pop up on our stereo. In the past year or so, we've acquired some Wiggles DVDs and CDs, so Margaret and Teddy have become fans as well. And the recent concert took it up a notch. At this point, whenever I put a CD in the stereo, Teddy requests that it be a Wiggles CD. And Margaret keeps asking to watch their "Top of the Tots" video. So we may be stuck with them for a while, at least until the kids outgrow them when they are around, ummmm, five years old?

(An extended aside: I have a number of questions about the Wiggles and their show. For example, given that they were big when the Philly cousins were young, how much longer can they keep this up? They must be in their mid-forties. Will they be able to do this, and will the kids notice and still love them, when they're in their fifties? And as for their act, how much of it is an act? That is, do they switch off immediately after walking off stage? What happens when they run into some little kid and his parents in the loo? Do they immediately have to go into Wiggles mode, regardless of the situation? Do they have bad shows and what does that look like? Would anyone in their audience know that a show was "bad"? Given that our show went on for over an hour, at which point most of their audience seemed to be losing attention, do they ever "lose" an audience? What does that entail? Despite the pre-show admonishments to avoid having the kids rush the stage, do the kids ever get out of control? And do they have groupies? Not the among the toddler set, of course, but the tots' moms, perhaps? Such are the thoughts that one has when watching a bunch of silly guys dancing around in front of a bunch of adoring kids and their parents.)

In any case, here's a video from the show. Don't worry if you can't understand much of the vocals - because of their accents and a tendency to mumble, I couldn't understand much of what they said. While Margaret danced around a bit, Teddy mainly sat there with a stunned expression on his face. Afterward, he was so overstimulated that he kept saying "I like the Wiggles. I like the dog. I like the dinosaur. I like the Wiggles" until we got him home and put him in bed.


Then yesterday, I took the day off from work and spent the day wandering the Mall with the kids. We thought about going to the zoo but, because it was a bit chilly, decided to go to the Museum of Natural History instead. Teddy fell asleep shortly after we got off the Metro, so Margaret and I decided to go to the National Gallery of Art. We wandered around the museum, talking about various paintings. In each room, Margaret would pick one painting, and we would stop to contemplate it. Even though she usually liked paintings that involved "girls in dresses," one of our favorite paintings was a George Bellows painting entitled "New York", a fitting choice given that Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Steve both live in New York City and that I'm a big Bellows fan (see this or this or this). I would ask her various questions: What does she see in the painting? What does she think the people in the painting are doing? What does she think the girl's name is? What does she like best in the painting?

Sometimes, she would beg off answering my questions, but she was generally pretty good at coming up with answers. I suspect that she's at an age where she has started to recognize that there are "right" answers to certain questions - such as how many (whatever) do you see - but she isn't completely convinced that she has to give that answer. I tried to encourage her to say whatever popped into her head, and it was fun to see what she would come up with.

We stopped to have a gelato in the museum cafe - which we managed to finish just as Teddy woke up - before heading out to ride on the carousel in front of the old Smithsonian building. Then we went to fly a kite by the Washington Monument. Ironically, the wind, which had been gusting all day, died just as we started to fly our kite. I managed to get it up a few times, with Teddy and Margaret chasing each other around beneath it. But as soon as I'd pass it to Margaret, the wind would die and the kite would plummet to the ground.

Finally, an episode of strong winds allowed us to get the kite up for both of the kids to fly. Naturally, at just that moment, a bicycle cop came by and asked us to take it down for thirty minutes or so. He didn't say why, but it probably had something to do with the helicopters that often swoop across the Mall. Rather than waiting, we packed up our kite and headed home.

Today, we had to pick up a FedEx package in Maryland (a long story that I won't go into), so we decided to make a day of it by going to the kids museum in Baltimore. Margaret and Teddy had a blast. On the way home, we stopped by Ikea, figuring that we might as well if we were in the 'burbs. Our main purchase was a little lamp that we can attach to Margaret's bed. Lately, she either wants us to sit with her or wants to "read books" while going to bed. Since we don't want to sit with her for hours on end, we've let her read books, but the light situation hasn't been ideal. Now, she has a little light that clamps on to her bed that allows us to turn off the other lights so that she can "read" her books, which mainly involves her talking to herself, while Teddy doesn't get disturbed.

The reason the light in notable is because it follows a general pattern in both of our families. My sister was notorious for reading books by flashlight when she was younger. And her daughter, Margaret's cousin, has frequently done the same. I'm not sure if Abby snuck books into bed at a young age, but I suspect that she did. Hence, we're maintaining a longstanding family tradition by allowing our daughter to ruin her eyes in order to read books in bed. Perhaps, however, her little Ikea light will help avoid the "ruin eyes" part. Still, it may create tension when Margaret actually starts to "read" and we need her to go to sleep. Stay tuned.