Busy weekends

One of the reasons I haven't been posting much lately is because we've recently become a very active family on the weekends. I'm not quite sure why, but we seem to have hit a period in which we're busy busy busy, so that I don't really have time to think any deep thoughts about the kids, much less to write about them.

Today, for example, started with a trip to the main drag through Georgetown to watch the Marine Corps Marathon. We've recently become fans of marathons after Mama ran the first leg of a relay at the Baltimore Marathon a couple of weeks ago. At the marathons we've seen, the kids gape at the crowds, both those running and those lining the route, and occasionally yell "Go, go, go." Their yelps were much much more effective at Baltimore where the crowds on the route were more sparse yielding a bigger response from the runners. (I tend to yell at people wearing interesting gear, such as the guy with the "I love beer" shirt - which warranted a bellow of "BEER" - or folks wearing Cubs gear - who get a rousing "GO CUBBIES!!!") But the Marine Corps Marathon is a bigger event, and we got to watch a band that was set up at the corner of M St and Wisconsin Ave.

After an hour or so watching the band and the runners, we ate lunch and headed up for a swim at the city's new Wilson Aquatic Center. The Wilson Center is a real jewel - the type of place typically found in the 'burbs rather than the city. We've been going there almost every weekend since it opened. One of us takes the kids to the kiddie pool, where Margaret and Teddie cavort, splash, and generally work on their water skills, while the other swims (exhausting - for me, at least) laps in the 100M lap pool. It's a great activity as both we and the kids get completely worn out. (By the way, we suspect that Teddy may start actually swimming before Margaret. As in many situations, he tends to be more daring in the pool and seems to have a better grasp of kicking and paddling. Even if he still thrashes around and sinks like a rock when he gets disoriented.)

Then, once we got home, we loaded the kids in the stroller and trekked around the city. It was a beautiful fall day in DC, and we wandered around, hitting all sorts of interesting stores, while the kids snoozed.

After the kids woke up and we got home, I put Margaret in the back of the bike and went for a ride. We bought a kid bike seat some time ago, but I found that we didn't use it unless I really made an effort. As a result, just as we've gone for a swim almost every weekend, Margaret and I try to take a bike ride each weekend. We often bike down to the Jefferson Memorial, where, when the weather was warm, we would grab a rocket pop from our favorite vendor and would eat it while sitting on the side of the tidal basin, watching the paddle boats and tourists. Then we head around Hains Point before circling the Lincoln Memorial on the way home. Other times, we've biked down the Potomac River to Old Town Alexandria to meet Mama. Today, we headed up the Capital Crescent Trail which follows the Potomac before cutting up into Maryland. In general, our bike trips are a great time as I get a workout while Margaret gets to see interesting things. She often sits in the back talking or singing to herself.

So we all end up pretty exhausted by the end of a weekend day. The account of today's activities doesn't even cover the plays that we've seen (Go Dog Go!), the tennis and soccer episodes (we often play tennis early in the morning because it allows us to do something while the kids are confined in the court with their rackets and soccer balls), trips to local farmers' and flea markets, and our other events with friends. Still, it should provide some (weak) justification for why I haven't written much lately. Here, though, are some pictures for those who have missed them. Including some pictures from Teddy's second birthday. Good grief, did I miss writing a post about that?

I love the kids, but c'mon

So we had a bad day today. It was bad in so many dimensions that it's difficult to know where to start. Let's see...

First, Teddy was up a lot last night and ended up spending most of the night in our bed. This reflects a more general problem - the kids, especially Margaret who is now about to get out of her bed and can stagger into our room in the middle of the night, often get up during the night. Rather than trying to get them back to sleep in their own beds, we often let them sleep with us. This arrangement works ok in some instances, but in others, it disrupts our sleep too much, especially when we're all crammed in the bed together. Nevertheless, rather than fighting the kid-in-our-bed syndrome and spending hours trying to get them back to sleep in their own beds, we've generally allowed them to crash in our bed once they wake up. Maybe (probably?) a mistake, and something that we've been trying to figure out how to fix, but that's the current status quo.

Still, last night was a particularly bad night with the boy. When I came up to bed, Teddy was already in our bed. I tried to move him back to his bed, but at some point, shortly after I fell asleep, he woke up and started howling. I tried to lay on the floor next to his bed - a really lovely situation - but eventually decided to bring him back to our bed rather than risking him waking Margaret. He spent the next few hours tossing and turning, constantly hitting me in the back. Teddy tends to grope around in our bed, grabbing us in various ways that prevent us from falling asleep, even when he's asleep. So I didn't get much rest. Thanks, Teddy.

Then, sometime during the night, he managed to overwhelm his diaper and left a wet spot on our bed. Lovely.

Margaret and he then had their usual battles in the morning over books and such. And Teddy howled, as he invariably does, about his sweater when I put it on him. Great.

After I picked them up from school, Teddy again howled about his sweater. Margaret then howled about her inability to use a particular "balance beam" (i.e., a wall near a sidewalk that she likes to walk on) because some other random toddler was using it. On average, I think, our life is pretty pleasant. The problem is that the average masks the wild variation that arises from one kid screaming while the other is beaming followed by the reverse of that situation. In this case, Teddy was a cheerful fellow in the front of the stroller as he informed me of the distress experienced by his sister in the back.

Then we went to the grocery store where Margaret had a major meltdown because I wouldn't buy her some cheese. This lasted for about 30 minutes during the entire visit to the grocery store and a good chunk of time afterwards. It got to the point where she was basically hyperventilating, and despite my irritation with her, I had to spend some time calming her down.

We then got home where Teddy and Margaret proceeded to pummel each other for a while. Margaret tends to use more sophisticated "psychological" warfare - such as teasing Teddy by holding a book out of his reach - while Teddy tends to use more physical methods - such as climbing all over his sister while she tries to read a book. I try to separate them, but they seem to be inevitably attracted to one another, such that they invariably end up in a conflict that makes one or both scream. Of course, during all of this, I'm trying to make dinner. Which wasn't helped tonight when Margaret managed to send water from the sink all over the kitchen. And both of the kids were badgering me, as they always do, for some sort of "special treat" to eat before dinner. The path of least resistance is to give them something, but then they don't eat any dinner. Such are the dilemmas that I face.

Eventually, Mom came home and we managed to eat dinner. A lovely dinner, I might add, of pork vindaloo. After which I was done - I handed the kids off for their baths and headed down to send some emails and watch TV. Just as well, I think, as Teddy managed, for the first time, to poop in the bathtub. Just perfect.

Belated post

So I haven't posted anything in quite a while. The lack of posts is partly due to other demands on my time, but it also reflects that blog posts involve a certain momentum that dissipates without activity. That is, I can't remember exactly what I was writing about or what was going on in my last posts. As a result, the whole process loses a sense of momentum and continuity.

The result is that I have some stuff - pictures and movies - to post. But I have no idea what to write about. Let's see.....

Well, Margaret is interesting, as always. But Teddy is the one who is really interesting at this point. His verbals skills have progressed to the point that he's actually a functioning member of the family. At this point, he rarely babbles. Instead, almost everything that he says - and he has a lot to say - actually means something. We may be the only people who can interpret his gibberish, but it's rarely complete nonsense. While Margaret tends to say more interesting things (such as, "We don't like taxi drivers because they don't know our city!" during our taxi ride home from the airport), Teddy occasionally tosses in interesting thoughts and opinions of his own. Although such opinions are noted but rarely honored, it's still fun to see what he'll say.

Physically, Teddy is also making progress. He rarely makes clearly clumsy moves at this point. For example, he is much better on the stairs, so much so that we have considered taking down the many gates. And he loves to run. He pumps his little arms and churns his body, as if such actions will make him go faster. In the end, he may fall, but such events are less systematic than they once were. An associated development is his interest in sports - he loves soccer/futbol, basketball, baseball, and tennis. He doesn't always correctly identify the sport on TV, with confusion often arising for basketball, baseball, and football, but he's drawn to and loves to play them all. Of course, Margaret likes sports and sporting events as well, especially soccer and events associated with our hometown team, DC United, but Teddy takes his interest to another level. As with many other differences between the kids, we're not sure if this reflects a gender difference or something else.

Hmmm, what else? Can't think of much, but perhaps the following pictures and video will suffice.

Pink princess slippers

(For folks looking for pictures, we're heading up to Philly for Labor Day weekend, so we should have plenty of pictures when we return.)

After a nasty, putrid August, the weather in DC has become much cooler and less humid in the last week. In fact, it got so cool that Margaret asked for a sweater after breakfast on Tuesday. I ran upstairs and grabbed the gray fleece sweater that I'd bought for her in a sale at some point over the summer. "I don't like that sweater. I want my pink sweater," she said, after I brought it downstairs. "But your pink sweater doesn't fit you anymore," I said, "Just wear this one." "No, I want a pink sweater." We went back and forth for a while until I finally convinced Margaret to wear the gray sweater "just this once." After we pointed out, in the car on our way to school, that both Mama and Grandma Nancy have gray fleece sweaters, she seemed to tentatively accept that the gray sweater was actually acceptable. But she didn't seem terribly happy about it.

This exchange reflects a battle that I've been expecting for some time. Apparently, kids can become very obstinate about their clothes. This behavior has been evident in our family for some time - Margaret often puts up a fight over her clothes, for no apparent reason except to reject the proposed outfit. I've also heard many stories about girls who want to wear "pink princess" outfits. (Abby tells a story about how she wore a particular cowgirl outfit for an extended period when she was a kid.) To the extent that this behavior reflects random attempts to exert control, I have little sympathy for it. After all, Teddy will say "not that one" we pull out a shirt, even if he has no real rationale for refusing the shirt, other than the fact that we proposed it. (He has no clue, but likes to use the phrases that he knows in an appropriate context. Bravo, I say, but that still doesn't make me want to honor his "requests.") But if Margaret's behavior reflects an actual shift in her clothing preferences, it's more problematic as it runs counter to a strategy that I've been using for some time. Let me explain.

Most people that I know find out the gender of their children before they are born. We didn't. Certain friends of mine found this baffling. "Why would you refuse free information?," one friend asked me (as gender determination is trivial given all of the prenatal ultrasounds). In the case of Margaret, my rationale for not learning her gender was quite simple. If we don't know the gender of the kid, then we'll receive lots of "gender neutral" stuff, including apparel and other baby items. Not pink or blue, but green, yellow or some other gender neutral color. If we were then to have a second kid, which we planned to do so on some level, then all of that stuff for the first kid would be usable for the second, regardless of the second's gender. In contrast, if we had known that Margaret was a girl, all of her pink clothes would have been useless for Teddy. As it turned out, baby Teddy ended up wearing a lot of the stuff that we received prior to Margaret's birth.

This only works for infant clothes, as once Margaret was born, the girl clothes flooded in. (It also doesn't explain why we didn't learn Teddy's gender. I actually can't explain that one.) But I've tried to keep up the basic "gender neutral" theme. Get a green shirt or plain tan shorts or simple blue jeans - Margaret can wear it now, and Teddy can wear it later. This hasn't worked perfectly as many kids clothes are too geared towards one gender or the other, but for certain items, say a red winter coat or maybe a gray fleece sweater, it has worked pretty well.

Until now, it would appear. Margaret has apparently reached the "pink princess" phase where she can recognize the difference between styles of clothes and, moveover, has clear opinions about the clothes that she actually likes. Hence, in addition to the protests over the gray sweater, we had the following exchange earlier tonight.

"Where are my slippers?," she asked.

"Your dragon slippers?," I replied.

"Yes, where are they?"

"Well, I think that they're in your shoe bin."

After digging around for them, Margaret pulled them out, compared them to her Converse hi-tops, and asked, "Are they size 7? Will they still fit me?"

"I don't know. They may be too small for you, in which case Teddy can have them. We may have to get you some new slippers."

"Can we get pink princess slippers?"

"No, I think that we'll look for more dragon slippers."

"But I want pink princess slippers!"

"But dragon slippers are really cool! Don't you want more dragon slippers?"

"No, I want pink princess slippers!"

As Abby noted regarding the gray sweater, I'm probably fighting a losing battle.

My goodness

Has it really been almost a month since I last posted on this blog? If so, where are the cries of outrage from my many fans? Even if you don't appreciate my always insightful commentary, you must want pics of the kids. Right?

I don't currently have much to report on the kids. Teddy is becoming a "big boy" in many ways. He's not only physically big, but he's starting to "talk" in the broadest sense of the word. He says lots of stuff, often involving actual words which occasionally reflect complex sentences with nouns, pronouns and verbs. Still, only the teachers at daycare, Abby and I can generally decipher what he's saying.

As for Margaret, she continues to become more and more interesting. Lots of interesting thoughts and opinions. She's become a serious fan of books without pictures, especially those written by Beverly Cleary. She spied a shelf of Ramona books in Barnes and Noble the other day which led us to buy a book from the Henry Huggins series. When we read them at night, she sits there on the edge of her bed, while Teddy drifts off to sleep, waiting for the next exciting episode. And for a three year old, she has an amazing ability to not only absorb the stories but also to recall them. It's a lot of fun, especially when I'm recounting stories about Henry and Ribsy that make me chuckle.

Here's a mish-mash of pics from the last month:

Why?

Everyone out there with (older) kids will smile and sagely nod his or her head in response to this post. Because Margaret has reached the point where one of her favorite words is. . . Why?

Margaret is a pretty vocal little kid. (By the way, although this post isn't about him, so is Teddy. He just isn't terribly articulate or comprehensible at this point.) She loves to talk and talk about all sorts of things in a very piercing voice that cuts through everything else. That voice is very effective at waking you up in the middle of the night. Or, as the case may be, in the morning. As I think I wrote about before, Margaret talked the entire time during a flight from Chicago to DC. On the one hand, I was happy that she wasn't fussing, given that it was a late flight. But I also felt bad for everyone near us who had to listen to the incessant chirpy voice from a nearby seat. The upshot is that Margaret is very difficult to ignore.

Margaret also has interesting things to say. On our recent drive to Connecticut, we started trying to distract her with "stories" about her and Teddy. These stories, told by Abby, chronicle the first few days of one kid or the other. Margaret has found these stories to be fascinating and keeps requesting them. To the point that I'm pretty fed up with the whole "birth story" genre. After it became apparent that her requests for "my story" or "Teddy's story" wouldn't be met, she has started telling those stories on her own. It's fascinating to hear her take on our pre-kid life and the subsequent disruption caused by the arrival of the kids.

On our walk home, we have always had interesting conversations. But lately, she has started asking "why." It really doesn't matter what we're talking about - she just asks "why." "Why is the fire truck not in the fire station?" "Why did that person ask you for directions?" "Why do we have to cross the street?" "Why are you yelling at that taxi cab?" And so on.

The "why" sequences fall in two general classes. In the first, variations of the same question are repeated over and over.

For example, Gypsy, the cat belonging to a former neighbor, went AWOL a few months ago (and has not returned).

"Why did Gypsy leave?," Margaret will ask, during our walk home.

"I'm not sure. Gypsy didn't tell us," I'll reply.

"Why did Gypsy go away?"

"We should ask Marissa." (Gypsy's owner.)

A pause. "Why doesn't Marissa have Gypsy anymore?"

"I don't know."

"Why didn't Gypsy tell us when she left?"

"I don't know. We really don't know where she went."

"Why didn't Gypsy tell us where she went?"

"I don't know."

And so on, and so on. The general theme is that I don't know the answer and give a vague response, but Margaret won't let the issue go.

The second, and more sophisticated, form of "why" questioning involves questions that are distinct, but logically follow one another. For example, after running into Marissa while walking home:

"Where is Marissa going?"

"She's probably going home to walk Boone." (Her dog.)

"Why is she going to walk Boone?"

"Because he has been inside all day."

"Why has he been inside all day?"

"Because Marissa has been at work."

"Why has Marissa been at work?"

"Because that's what adults do, they go to work."

"Why do adults go to work?"

"Because that's what adults do."

"Why do adults do that?"

"Because they need to buy groceries and stuff."

"Why do they need to buy groceries?"

"Because people need to eat food."

And so on. Occasionally, Margaret will catch me in a tautology, because I rarely pay much attention to my responses. Such logical problems rarely seem to bother her. Instead, she's focused on getting answers to the series of questions that pop into her head.

Why, why, why?

Eventually, I get tired of the whole routine and try to distract her with another line of conversation. Currently, I often succeed. However, I suspect that she will eventually figure out when I'm stonewalling her or, alternatively, just bullshitting. That's when the "why" will really have bite.

Embarassing the brother

While I posted a version of this some time ago on YouTube, I recently learned (while posting the video of Teddy in the fountain) that I could upload better quality videos directly from my camera. Hence, I shall embarass my brother by posting this (higher quality) video from his wedding reception.

I can only say three things.

First, I think that he's playing my dad's old guitar which, if I recall correctly, became my guitar at some point. Not sure when ownership was transferred, but I've been looking for a guitar to entertain the kids. I've been thinking about getting a Martin, but an old, beat up Gibson that tears up your fingers would probably work just as well (and after using this one, you'll surely agree Steve, you can play any guitar).

Second, the song is actually pretty catchy.

Third, I have three regrets from my own wedding. First, and perhaps superficially, my tux didn't fit well which made me unhappy during the reception. Second, Abby was unable to follow my lead during our dance. Hell, it wasn't a very complicated song. As one of my friend said at the time, "Mark's trying to fox trot, but Abby won't let him lead." Finally, and relevant for this post, I didn't "toast" Abby. I know exactly what I would've said. When we met, what I thought about her, when I knew that she was "the one," where we'd been, what we'd done together, and so on - no need to rehash it here. Still, I didn't get off my ass to do it.

In contrast, Steve pulled this off like a champ. And I hope that this video serves as a memorial of sorts to his wedding.


As a complete aside, for those who are interested, here's a version of our song from my wedding. Who couldn't fox trot to this? (And, for the sake of completeness, here's a poem that Joe read during our ceremony. I just like it, that's why I'm linking to it.)

A fine weekend

We had a pretty good weekend. (After taking the above photo, I said, "Teddy, this is Teddy. High five?" And our little Teddy gave big Teddy a big high five. Margaret kept saying, "Who is Teddy Roosevelt?")

Again, we had a pretty good weekend. But it didn't start that way, as little Teddy was a real crank yesterday morning. He just fussed and fussed and fussed, especially whenever his mama put him down. When we went shopping at Target, Teddy would give a heart wrenching rendition of what is currently his most complex sentence - "Don't leave me!!" - every time Abby walked away, despite the fact that I was right there pushing him in the shopping cart, smiling and nodding at all of the people who scowled at me for my obvious negligence. It got to the point that we thought he might be sick, with an ear infection or something like that. By noon yesterday, I was thinking about what a bad weekend it could be and how nice it would be to send the boy back to daycare on Monday. He was just being almost indescribably petulant.

However, his fussiness quickly dissipated once we got to a birthday party at a public water park in northern Virginia. Where he had a great time and where we also were able to observe some notable differences between Margaret and the boy. (BTW, the next few paragraphs are all of the profound parenting ruminations that I'll be writing today.)

As I said, the birthday party was at a nearby public water park. These parks are scattered throughout Arlington and involve a small area with jets of water that periodically shoot up in the air. They aren't terribly fancy, although DC would never be able to put together something like them. We've visited this type of park in the past with Margaret, and although she likes them, she has never been very active in them. Instead, she sort of loiters around the edges, giggling and jumping when she gets sprayed with water, but never really exposing herself to the jets.

In contrast, after an initial period of hesitation, Teddy dove right in. As you can see in the pics below, he would put his hands, feet and even his face in the stream. He ran all over the place and, for better or worse, learned various tricks, like drinking the water, from the "big boys." At some point, he figured out that he could stand over a jet so that it would shoot up into his pants. He seemed to enjoy this sensation.



The behavioral difference between Margaret and Teddy at the water park illustrates a more fundamental difference between the two: the boy tends to be much less cautious than Margaret. He'll throw himself around in ways that Margaret would have avoided at the same age. For example, to the extent that he can, given his still limited mobility, he'll launch himself down slides. Such as the circular slides found at many parks and a big, old-school slide (roughly 20 feet high) that he insisted on using (with me close behind) at a park last weekend.

As another (non-physical) example, Margaret tends to be pretty reserved around people in costumes like the big Teddy Roosevelt in the photo at the top of this post. Frankly, I can understand her concern - a clown or big guy like Teddy R. can be a bit frightening, especially if you're a little person. In situations like those with big sports mascots, Teddy doesn't necessarily throw himself at the guy in the costume, but he certainly doesn't show the same apprehension that Margaret does.

Is this a gender thing? I don't know, although I have heard many stories from other parents about how their sons are much more reckless than their daughters. And I think that I've read somewhere about how male traders tend to take bigger risks, and are correspondingly more likely to blow up, in financial markets. Do I have any deep insights or thoughts about this? No. All I know is that Teddy is much more active at places like the water park than Margaret. He gets the high of feeling water shoot up his shorts, but he's also more likely to slip and bonk his head. On some level, that's just, I suppose, the risk-return trade off that also drives those male traders.

The other reason that we had a good weekend was that the Cubs were in town for a four game series against the Nationals. I managed to attend games on Friday night (with a friend from Chicago), Saturday night (with Abby), and today (with the entire family) - all without paying for a single ticket (whoo-hoo!!) due to various connections (I'm very proud of that accomplishment, especially as our tickets for every game were primo - on Friday, we actually had waitresses serving our section). Despite the fact that it was really, really sunny and warm in our seats today, and despite some difficulties with the Metro - a stroller on a train full of baseball fans isn't very easy to maneuver, even without the delays due to the recent Metro accident - we ended up having a fun time. The kids ate pop corn and Cracker Jacks, in addition to a couple of cups of ice that a nice vendor gave us. I kept putting chunks of ice under Teddy's hat to cool him down, but that didn't seem to staunch his enthusiasm. Instead, he had fun watching "baseball" or "tennis" or "basketball" or whatever he felt like calling it. And he really enjoyed grooving to the music.

Best of all, the Cubs ended up sweeping the Nats. Nothing like a trip to DC to make a team look like a real winner.

I'm sure that neither of the kids comprehend the game at all. And they don't really seem to have a clear sense of a "rooting interest," as both kids would clap, for either team, whenever other people clapped. Still, they both seem to enjoy the crowd and the whole spectacle. And Teddy would point at people in Cubs gear that we passed - and we saw lots and lots of people in Cubs regalia - and would say "Go Cubs!"

Faces of the kids

Bedtime battles

Life with a three year old involves many battles. Getting dressed, using the potty, eating dinner - each may or may not involve its own little power struggle between us and our little sweetheart. (As an aside, I think that Margaret randomizes, perhaps strategically, over whether she'll put up a battle for a given task. Will she get dressed tomorrow without yelling about it? Who knows.)

Lately, the most prominent battles have occurred at bedtime. For the past month or so, as soon as the light has been turned out, Margaret has declared, "I can't sleep." There's no lag at all, just an immediate declaration: "I can't sleep." We've tried all sorts of tricks to encourage her to sleep. I've made the "Grandma Mary" argument - your body is tired, so just close your eyes and try to rest your body - that was used on me as a child (and, hell, I still use that approach as an adult). For a while that worked as Margaret would rest and eventually fall asleep. We've tried bribery: If you sleep tonight, you can go for a walk with Mama and Maddie tomorrow. And we've tried moral suasion: The teachers at daycare (and the Berenstain Bears) say that you should avoid bedtime battles and should instead listen to your parents.

Lately, however, none of that has worked, and she's been much more difficult at bedtime. If we leave, she gets more and more agitated to the point that she ends up yelling for us (really Mama) at the top of her lungs. In the worst case scenario, such behavior ends up waking the boy, so we end up with not one, but two kids who are awake at 10:00.

In the past week or so, disruptions to Margaret's sleep schedule have exacerbated the problem. She stayed up until 11:00 after the fireworks on July 4th. Then after we had people over the next night, she was too wound up to fall asleep again until around the same time.

In the past, she would settle down after a few books. Even though we've started reading her "big girl" books without pictures (e.g., Beezus and Ramona), she doesn't calm down in the same way. (As another aside, it's very exciting that Margaret shows such enthusiasm for big girl books. But that's a subject for another, more positive post.) And none of our previous tricks, such as the "Grandma Mary" argument, are working either. Even if, in desperation, we give her a nuk, defying every parenting bone in my body, she still won't go to sleep. Instead, Abby or I (more commonly, Abby) end up sitting with her until she finally nods off, which takes way longer than we would like.

Good grief, what a lame post. I'm complaining about a normal toddler "phase." At least I hope that it's just a phase. But even if it is, we're reaching the end of our rope with her. (Any advice from current or former parents would be greatly appreciated.)

4th of July

One perk of living in DC is the great parades. While I remember going to parades at various points in my childhood, living a 20 minute walk from the usual parade route down Constitution Avenue in the nation's capital, a place which ends up having lots of parades as a matter of course, means that we end up seeing lots of parades. And again because we live in the capital, the parades tend to be top notch.

The standard parade in DC involves a combination of floats and big balloon characters, celebrities (Hey, isn't that Alex Trebek? Or, hey, that's apparently a guy from American Idol!), high school marching bands, people on miscellaneous modes of transportation such as motorcycles, old cars, unicycles, or old fashioned bikes with big front wheels, community groups such as clowns, boy scout troops, or veterans, and representatives of various ethnic groups doing whatever dances and music are typical for them.

Now, I recall high school marching bands in the parades that I attended as a child, but the number and quality of bands in DC parades beat anything from my childhood. After a few parades in DC, one becomes quite the connoisseur of high school bands. The best are those that toss some fancy footwork into their marching when the drums are playing their boom-boom boom-chicka-boom bits. Although I remember not liking when the drums and not the horns were playing when I was a child, Teddy and I like to groove along to the beat when only the drummers are playing. There's nothing more fun in a parade, I've concluded, than a good high school band. Although the music isn't always that good. And their outfits are invariably terrible. And they always look so damn hot in those terrible outfits, especially because our standard vantage point is at the end of the route when they're almost falling over. Still, you have to give them credit for the effort, and the whole event of a passing marching band makes us (especially Teddy) perk up and pay attention.

I suppose that the old cars and such were present in the parades of my youth along with the community groups, but what really distinguishes a parade in DC are the contingents from various ethnic groups. Today, we saw marchers from Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Vietnam, and China. On one level, I suppose that's not different from the Irish or Polish groups who march in the parades in Chicago, but the groups in DC really put on a show. Not to get too philosophical, but at the end of the day, these groups really makes me think about how heterogeneous the U.S. really is and how we're fundamentally a nation comprised of immigrants from all over the place. For all of the tension that immigration creates, we ultimately end up assimilating immigrant groups while also, to varying degrees, keeping their idiosyncratic traditions (for example, think Italian food, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo).

In any case, below are some pictures and a video of our trip to this year's 4th of July parade. One observation: As readers might notice, this set of pictures involves more pictures of Teddy than pictures of Margaret. To some extent, that reflects the fact that Margaret was being a bit petulant during the parade while Teddy was being a jovial little guy. But on a broader level, the focus on Teddy is indicative of the fact that he's becoming a much more interesting little person. Not only is he talking more, but he has interesting things to say and interesting ways of saying those things. Of course, much of what he says is garbled nonsense, but part of the fun is trying to decipher what he's trying to communicate. And he can be very charming as he tries to communicate with us. Or infuriating depending on the situation. Which makes it even more fun.