off to the moon!

"Up, up! Time to go!" Will called to us all at 7am Wednesday morning. The day he had been waiting for was at hand. However, the doors of the National Air and Space Museum didn't open until 10am so I had to slow everyone down so we would not get to the doors before even the museum employees arrived.

After 2 hours of looking at such famous artifacts like the rickety plane flown by Orville Wright, Amelia Earhart's tiny red plane she flew across the Atlantic, and the LM prototype shown here, the kids started pestering me for their promised "astronaut ice cream."
Actually, Maggie had been asking in a plaintive voice since we walked in the door, but I told her if she asked again I was going to eat hers. I figured that I would indulge them in such a treat once as children, especially since I had to shell out $16 for a 5 bag pack of what I thought was going to all be packets of cookies and cream. However, I found as I passed them out that it was a mix including Neapolitan and freeze dried strawberries. When Mary, who clamored for the pink package, tasted one strawberry she started to cry. I first gave them to Timmy, but when he decided that he didn't like them either, all the kids generously gave pieces of their ice cream to him.

As on the previous two days, we made it all the way to the Capitol reflecting pool before Charlie announced, "I have to go potty!" Perhaps it was seeing all that water, but after the first pant wetting incident on Monday, I put him back in nappies. This day I told him yet again, "There is no bathroom within 4 blocks and no place you can just pull down your pants. You can go in your nappie or hold it until we get back to the house."

After another afternoon of playing UNO, naps, and reading stories, we had had one house disaster. My cousin's house is just like most of my relative's homes - filled with exquisite antiques and breakables. I warned the children many times during our trip not to damage anything, but just when I thought everything was going to emerge unscathed, disaster struck. While I was sitting in the next room bathing the little boys Maggie found a ball point pen and drew several circles in the finish of a blanket chest. I scrubbed with some brownish oil, pledge, and wax, but to no avail. To say that I was livid and mortified was a gross understatement. I trundled everyone into bed early and prayed that my relatives would understand and allow me to pay for Maggie's misdeed. After the tongue-lashing she received, I figured it would be quite a while before she did such a thing again. Little did I know that I only had to wait until the next day for another episode of childish foolishness that got her mother riled up.

Tomorrow's itinerary? The National Gallery of Art, packing, cleaning up, and the long drive home.