The Great American I Met Today

My day started with me over sleeping.  That's not a huge deal, since my schedule is largely set by me.  However, it did throw off my routine and had me planning to get on the bus at a time I'm not accustomed to.  Just as I went out the door to go down to the street for the bus, it passed by.  Again, no big deal.  I just started walking.  It's only a mile to the Metro station.

Just as I had turned onto the road that runs by the Metro station, a blue Tundra stopped next to me with the window down.  The driver, with a thick accent, said "Metro?".  I wasn't sure if he was asking directions, or my destination, so I asked him to say again.  He said, "Going to Metro?", and I understood the intent of his question, so I said, "yes, thank you", and jumped in. 

That happens from time to time, not too often, but since I'm always walking in uniform it is not a remarkable occurrence.   Once it was a retired Army Officer, who I would guess was a General.  Once it was a young guy in a beat up Volvo who said he was recently back from Iraq with USAID and the Army had ridden him all over Iraq in MRAPs, so he thought he'd repay the favor a little.  Sometimes, I politely decline; usually because I'm almost home.

Back to my ride.  As I got in, I noticed the big Harley Davidson sticker in the back window and there was country music on the radio.  The driver (again, in the thick accent I couldn't exactly place, except European) asked where I was stationed.  I told him the Pentagon.  He told me that he "spends a lot of time at Arlington Cemetery".  He goes on to say that he is a Patriot Guard Rider and they had just ridden for a Marine yesterday and they're riding for an Air Force Captain tomorrow.  I told him that we really appreciate all the Patriot Guard does.  He also told me that his grand-daughter is in the Army at Ft. Sam Houston.  I said, "she must be a medic".  He said that yes, she is.

He was wearing short sleeves and had several visible tattoos.  I noticed one on his forearm that was a design with words around it.  I don't explicitly  remember the design, but I think it was an American flag.  I was focused on reading the words, which said, "French by birth, American by the Grace of God".

How's that for blowing up your preconceptions and stereotypes?  If I'd met the same guy under different circumstances (and recognized the French accent), I'd probably just thought he was another "frog" barely hiding his disdain for America.  However, this guy was a pick-up driving, Harley riding, country music loving, 100% American who is more patriotic (when it comes to walking the talk) than probably 75% of the people who will read this.

Lesson learned:  Great American's come in all shapes, sizes, and accents.  Don't judge a book by the cover.  I was proud to spend a few minutes this morning with my French born American friend.  

More on Janelle and my Hair

You may remember that Janelle has her own ideas about my hair, or lack thereof.  If not see here: http://www.wherethearmysentus.blogspot.com/2012/03/from-mouth-of-babes.html

If you're a Facebook friend, you may also know that I shaved my head in anticipation of deploying to Afghanistan (which didn't happen.  More on that later, maybe..)

Today, she was drawing pictures and telling us all about them.  She's getting really good for her age.  She'll draw pictures and craft whole stories about princesses and witches and dragons that go with what she drew (at least in her mind).  She drew this particular picture and ran downstairs and told me, "Daddy, I drew this picture of you!"

Just for kicks, I said, "Baby, where's the hair?"  She said, "Daddy, it doesn't have hair."  I said "Why not?"  She replied, "Daddy, you brushed your hair.  You brushed your hair and brushed it all off."

Beware - it could happen to you.  Take my advice and stick to combing.  :)

Chick-fil-a (A+ in my book)

My hat is off to Chick-fil-a.  For most of my life, I have just thought of them as a fast food place to get a good chicken sandwich, although at a premium price.  Lately, I have come to appreciate the company on a second level.  (you may know all this) Chick-fil-a is still a private, family owned company with Southern roots in Georgia.  The owners honor their Christian values by closing all their stores on Sunday to give their employees time to spend with their God and their families.  Publicly held companies can't get away with "traditional nonsense" like that.

Our local Chick-fil-a, up here in a DC suburb, has family night every Tuesday.  They already have a small "playplace" with tunnels and slides, but on Tuesdays they bring in some sort of family entertainment or event.  The only time I got off early enough to go, they had a folk/children's singer who involved the kids in the songs and let them play with instruments, etc.  

Last Tuesday, they had the Fairfax Fire Department out at the restaurant for a fire safety event.  They had one of the cows dressed up like a fireman and a firetruck outside for the kids to climb on/in and explore.  Joseph loved it.  The firecow came around to Jeni's table and interacted with Joseph.  A bit later, Jeni turned back to Joseph and he was gone!  After a brief moment of panic, she looked outside and saw that he'd followed the cow outside.  He got to get up in the fire truck and ask all sorts of questions.... mostly "how?"  There weren't many people there that early, so he had all the time he wanted.  One of the firemen asked Jeni how old he was and was surprised to learn that he's only 2 1/2, because of all the questions he asked.

Easter

We have our own little Easter tradition, since we've been living in town and don't have a legitimate yard.  We put the kids' Easter baskets out the night before and hide some eggs around the house so they can come down and search for what the Easter Bunny left.  You would have thought it was Christmas Eve Saturday night with all the excitement and all the questions about what the Easter Bunny might bring.  Jeni left an egg or two and a little chocolate bunny in each of their rooms when they were asleep and Sunday morning at 0700, Jannelle ran into our room, holding her bunny, and said "mommy, the Easter Bunny is gone!", meaning he has been and gone, so its OK to get up (much like Santa).

Staged Saturday Night

Looking high and low.

Joseph found his share

Sometimes the goodies hide in plain sight.

Janelle actually shared.  She peeled a chocolate bunny and offered it to Joseph and Jeni until I finally took it.

They've been big on giving puppet shows lately, so they each got a hand puppet.  Janelle got a rabbit...

and Joseph got a hedgehog.

After breakfast, or at least the time normally allotted for breakfast, I asked Janelle if she would like to do anything today.  She said she would like to go to "the farm".  When I asked Joseph, he said that he would also like to go to the farm.  We had originally planned to go to Reston Zoo because they were having free egg hunts with paid admission but since that would have cost around $50 and the kids don't get anymore out of it, we decided to do what the kids asked for and go to Frying Pan instead.  Plus, its free!

It's that time of year at Frying Pan/Kidwell Farms.  There were baby pigs, sheep, goats, cows, and chickens.  The kids were most interested in the baby pigs.

 

Piggies!

Piggies up close.

Piggies eating.

 Other fun things to do.

Cows are neat too!

and baby chickens

We've been there probably 20 times (remember, I said its free) and we've never seen this guy showing out like this before.

They have a lot of old farm equipment around there.

Some they use every day.  They also have some museum pieces of historical machinery.

 

But eventually you have to leave the farm....

... and go off to the playground. 

While the kids were playing, I noticed a map, posted on a sign I'd never noticed before, that showed the entire park.  It's much more than meets the eye.  There was a "nature trail" on the map that leads down to a "waterfall", so I convinced the kids to go on a hike to find the waterfall.  (again, words like hike and waterfall are in the eye of the beholder).

On the back 40, leaving civilization.

So much to see, and TALL trees.

and flowers to pick.

a little rest along the way.  Janelle wanted to take her flowers all the way to the waterfall, so she could put them in the water.

Gotta be careful and stay with Daddy.  There are a lot of thing to fall on here.

We finally found the waterfall!

Whew, that hiking really takes it out of you!  Let's take a rest before we go on to the car.

All in all, a really nice day.  We topped it off with a "picnic" at McDonald's on the outside tables.  The neat part is, the whole time, you could hear the jets roaring overhead either on takeoff or short approach to Dulles Airport.  Frying Pan Park is less than 5 miles from the runways.  Nature is where you find it.

 

From the Mouth of Babes

First, a little context:  We sometimes bribe our kids to eat.  Sue us. We'll tell them, "eat all your lunch and you can have a cookie (or an ice cream, or a popsicle, or whatever.)".

Second, over the weekend, Janelle came into the bathroom when I was shaving.  She got Jeni's brush and offered it to me and said, "Here Daddy, brush your hair."  Jeni's brush is one of those things for long haired women, with individual, thick bristles.  You know, a few single, stiff, bristles in several rows perpendicular to the vented spine of the brush.  All the women have one.  I told Janelle that I didn't have enough hair to use Mommy's brush and I use a comb instead. (as an aside, she said "Grandpa doesn't have enough hair either").

Tonight, Janelle was having trouble getting to sleep, so I went up and cuddled with her and rocked her a bit.  She pinched some chest hair, below my collar, and then said, "Daddy, you have a lot of hair...... on your head."  (now running her fingers over my rapidly thinning head) "If you eat all your lunch, you can have some more hair... and some more hair... and some more hair, and then you can use Mommy's brush to brush your hair, if you eat all your food."

Bless her little heart.  You can't hide from your kids.

Girl Scout Cookies

A while back, I ordered some girl scout cookies from a little girl that knocked on our door.  I have no idea who she was, but she knocked on the door, and I like girl scout cookies, so I bought some Thin Mints, Tagalongs, and Do-Si-Dos.  They're four dollars a box now!  I remember when they were a dollar a box and the boxes were bigger, but I digress.  Anyway, since I haven't eaten them, or added to the girl scout cookie pile at work, they've just been laying, unopened, on the table.  The kids have really been eying those cookie boxes lately.  Jeni called me the other day and asked if Janelle could have some of "my" Thin Mints, because she wanted one of those "chocolate" cookies.  She'd told Janelle that those were my cookies and she'd have to ask me.  Of course, I said yes.  I don't have a "mine" that I won't share with the kids.  Jeni told me later that she only did that to slow down their appetite for cookies.  Janelle loved the Thin Mints, by the way.

Fast forward a few days... and I'm telling this second hand, because I was at work. We had a box of Tagalongs on  the kitchen counter, out of reach (or so we thought), that Jeni had been doling out, one by one, at select times.  There were three left in the box... until Jeni caught Joseph going up the stairs, where Janelle was, with a cookie in one hand that he was offering to Janelle, and two cookies in the other, presumably for himself.  I have to give him credit for his generosity in sharing his haul with his sister.

This morning, Jeni woke to silence.  That's unusual since the kids usually wake up before Jeni and wake her up - either making noise playing, or coming to her bed and waking her.  Jeni went down the hall to check on them and they were both missing from their rooms!  She went down stairs and discovered that they were conspiring to get the Do-Si-Dos.  They had gotten hold of the box and had it in the floor with the cardboard flap open but they were having trouble getting the plastic sleeve open.  Joseph was on his was to Janelle with a pair of scissors.  Those little schemers had managed to stay quiet, work together, and were about to liberate a box of girl scout cookies!

I've got to love the little stinkers for their ingenuity and, although they are always ready to tattle on each other for transgressions real or imagined, they love each other and share and work together to get what they mutually want.

Mountain Climbing in Suburban NOVA

Mountain climbing in suburban NOVA, you say?  Well, it all depends on your perspective.  Two and Four year olds, who have never seen the Rockies, have a different perspective.

We went to Van Dyck Park in Fairfax this afternoon.  Van Dyck Park is built on the edge of a shallow terrain feature that a military man would call a draw, a southerner might call a holler, and a mountain northwesterner might call a drainage.  The playground is at the top, on level ground.  They've leveled and filled in on the side of the natural hill to make a kind of bowl with a big, level playing field between the playground and the creek at the bottom.  Since they've filled it in to make the playing fields, the drop at the end down to the creek is pretty steep.

They have a paved "fitness trail" around the park (it's NOVA, so it couldn't just be a path).  After the kids played a while in the playground, we went for a walk around the trail.  It circles around the rim of the playing field and drops down to the creek bed and loops around and comes up by the field to the playground.  When we got to the bottom, I challenged the kids to race me to the top of the big hill up to the field.  Of course, they did.

I tried to get them to do the arms raised, "we made it!" pose.

When we got up there, Janelle yelled down to Jeni, "Mommy, we can see the playground from up here!  Come up here and see!"  With that Jeni started up.  The kids watch a lot of Diego and Dora, which always involve saving something, so Janelle took about two steps down the hill, stuck her arm out, and said, "Mommy when you get this far, take my hand!"  I egged Joseph on and told him to go down and push Mommy up.  He ran down to about 2/3 of the way up and grabbed her hand and started pulling her up.  That upset Janelle, because she was supposed to help Mommy, but Jeni got to Janelle and extended her other hand to her and let them both pull her up.

Once Jeni got there, I challenged the kids to another trip.  Down we went, and back up we came.