Phoebe and Micaiah Dance

Note Micaiah's attempt to hug Phoebe and her subtle stiff arm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43KrogVjb1w

And this was going on when Alisa and I were both out working at the house ;). Micaiah calls Phoebe, "Ebe" and she calls him "Ciah."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6yr4xzdqc0&feature=related

Almost Home

We are currently living with our friends, the Hendricks. They have been more than great to us, letting us stay with them for the last few weeks. Phoebe's growing more and more comfortable with everyone in the household, which is great since we live just an 8 minute walk down the street.

As you can see, she's doing pretty well. But there have been a few rough times through all this transition.

We've been spending A LOT of time working. One of us works at the house while the other is with Phoebe. It's working quite well. After Alisa paints the bedroom on the main floor and Carpet King slaps in a piece of cheap carpet, our main floor will be 99.6% done. Upstairs is another story. I redid all the hardwood floors throughout the house and they turned out nice.

But even if we only have a one-bedroom main floor to live in for a while, it's about double what we had in Northern VA! We figure we can live down there while working upstairs and move up this fall.

I had to do some patch work due to this room being a kitchen in the past. This house offers one mystery after the next. We really don't know what the original configuration of walls, stairs, and windows was. But we hope to just make it look nice very soon.

Back in Minnesota

We're back in Minneapolis now. Our drive back from DC took 2 days thanks to the help of Alisa's parents (thank you!!!!). Our trip was very uneventful--just how you want it.

Phoebe has been having a lot of fun with Grandpa and Oma around and was a fantastic traveller. She really liked her car seat. This morning we went out for a walk, and when she saw the car she pointed and said "car seat." Perhaps she would have endured another 12 hr day?

We're staying at Glenn and Arlene's (thank you!!!!) through the weekend and closing on our house Tuesday. We're excited to get in there working on wallpaper and floors so we can be living there by the end of the month. We haven't used the camera much in the last weeks with all the packing so I will post with pics of our house after we close.

All wrapped up?

It's hard to believe that we arrived in the DC area a year ago this week. Looking back at old pictures of Phoebe without hair and chubby makes me wonder if we've been here longer!



Nevertheless, today is a sad day for me. It's unofficially my last day as a stay-at-home dad. I hated writing that last sentence. I think it's fair to say that spending every day with Phoebe this year has made it the best year of my life. Knowing that being here with Phoebe supported Alisa in pursuing her new field made it even sweeter.



I'm not looking forward to going back to work, even though I love teaching, and know I will love being there once it comes around. But today, I look at my little girl and know that I could spend every day with her from here on out, even when she throws her food off her tray because she'd rather have blackberries or cheese. I heard on the radio the other day that only 158,000 men stay home with kids in America. That made me proud. I think the other few million are just to dumb to realize that it's the best job anyone could ever have. I would maybe have to think twice if there was some sort of grading of papers involved.


Top picture: JFK's gravesite overlooking DC.

Right: JFK, Jackie, and their two children who died just after birth.


Below: Alisa and Phoebe at the Arlington House (high point in the cemetary) overlooking DC and the Mall. Phoebe enjoyed the crunch of the gravel under her feet.








Reflecting Pool looking toward Lincoln.

Phoebe and I took one last bus ride down to the mall to check out the reflecting pool and the WWII Memorial Monday morning. It hit like 95 that day so it was good to get home before 11am.

WWII Memorial.

Hot Days and a Birthday Party

Last Sunday Phoebe was invited to her park buddy's birthday party. This was the only time this year we socialized formally with people we have met here. Living here for one year with no plans to stick around made it easy to avoid building any sort of friendships. But the moms (and one stay-at-home dad . . . not many around) I see most days at the park with kids roughly Phoebe's age have been great to know this year.

Phoebe was really into the balloons and spent most of her time chasing this one.
Phoebe's park buddy, Nora.

She enjoyed her muffin, especially the chocolate frosting.

Another park buddy, Ethan. Ethan has tried to kiss her a couple of times. She just ignores him. It's very cute, but she can keep ignoring boys until she's 30.

This is Bela, the birthday boy. He turned 2 last Sunday.

After a bath, Phoebe found Alisa's scarves that I thought were well-hidden. I guess not.

She's been into making my pillows into chairs and beds today.

National Building Museum

Alisa suggested we go to the Building Museum this morning. I've been there four times now, three with Phoebe. I would put this on the top of my list for DC. If any of you are considering a trip out here, don't miss this building. There's not much more than the building to look at (very few exhibitions), but that's enough. It's a spectacular space, even when held up to some of the greater churches I've seen.

The museum is more or less a city-planning/achitectural museum. They have a kid play area that we felt Phoebe was finally old enough to appreciate. And as you can see here, she did.

"Tractors"

She really enjoyed riding around on these "tractors."

The toy store by our place and Barnes and Noble both have train sets like this one. Phoebe enjoys playing with these when we're out.

Summer Days!

The title is a Seinfeld reference that only my friend Ryan will probably get. Anyway . . .

Today Phoebe and I braved morning rush hour traffic and travelled across the river. It was surprisingly smooth! We wandered the gardens at the National Cathedral and then went inside for a look at the amazing series of Gothic arches. It's truly an amazing space and a piece of architectural greatness. But the camera batteries died outside. No bother though: you can probably google the pics of the interior and they'd be better than mine. I took the important ones of Phoebe wandering the garden, enjoying the benches and flowers.

Sunday, we went to the local spray park. Phoebe hated it. We aren't sure why she is so terrified of water, but it all started this winter at the community pool. We got work to do to get this kid happy about swimming again. I can't have a kid who hates swimming!

Doing okay, but . . .

MELTDOWN!

Memorial Day Weekend

Last night, we got a nice surprise when Alisa learned she has Monday off after assuming she had to work. We're grateful for a nice 3 day weekend to spend time together even though Alisa has a lot of final touches to put on her end-of-fellowship project.

Today we returned to Teddy Roosevelt Island for a morning walk. Alisa had not been there yet. I would argue that of all the tourist sites in DC, this has been my favorite. Probably because it is so overlooked, and therefore it's very quiet. Most importantly, it's a beautifully preserved space--as Teddy would have liked it.

Here is Phoebe last July at the memorial. It's hard to believe she was ever this much of a baby . . . or this chunky!

We spend a lot of time sitting on chairs these days. If we let her, she would have sat on each bench in this park--and there were a lot of them.

I think as the weather gets hotter, she wants more hats. So if it hits 100 here, she may go to three.

We should probably get her her own chair, eh?

Lazy Days

Summer's here and I'm sure it is for most of you in Minnesota as well. Phoebe and I have not been out and about as tourists for quite some time now as you can see. First, her nap (she only takes one now) takes up a chunk of the middle of the day so hitting DC tourist hot spots is not really an option. Most museums are only open from 10am until 5pm. And second, tourism is crazy right now. Lots of school groups swarm the Mall, which makes playing at the park more attractive.

Phoebe's drinking from a cup on her own, as long as it's not too full!

Phoebe really likes her "guys," especially the pig and sheep.

Phoebe insisted on wearing her shades all day yesterday. She calls them "Phoebe's" after I noted that mine were "Dad's." When I help her put them on, she stops and looks for a second, grins, and says "cool."