Getting ready for the holidays!

I had a big report due on Monday at work and then I was off Tuesday and yesterday. So I'm back at work today and ready to blog ..er...work. Right. Work.

I don't have anything really profound to say, so I guess I'll just get down what's been going on the last several days.

Last Saturday, we went to our friends Mark and Kelly's house and made reindeer cookies with Naomi and the boys!

I love that Kelly tried to get Naomi to eat a sandwich first. (She's shoving M&M's in her mouth by the handful.) Ha-Ha-Ha!

It was so much fun, we're going to do it again with a few other friends -- with more kids, yikes! -- this weekend at our house! Although I doubt it will be as fun as it was with Kelly and Mark because 1) Kelly is so laidback and cool about everything, that it was just really relaxed and nice and not manic like it probably will be when it's at my house, because I'm crazy and 2) Kelly made super delicious coquitos -- coconut eggnog with rum! Yummm!

It was so nice to see them all. I wish I lived closer to all my friends! Sniff.

Lester's big Christmas present this year was tickets to see Lauryn Hill at the 9:30 Club on Sunday!
We went to dinner in D.C. first and marveled at how much the neighborhood around Howard University, my alma mater, has changed. Things are developing/gentrifying so much that this restaurant we went to had only been open a week. And it was packed! And there were only a handful of black people. People who know anything about the Shaw/Howard U. area know that that is CRAZY.

Here we are, out. Alone. No kids. Alone. Having a drink. Alone.

The concert was really good (despite it being at the 9:30 Club, a standing-only venue which is impossible for shorties like me). For those of you who don't know anything about Lauryn Hill, suffice it to say that she is this incredible talent who got totally plowed over by her good-looking, charming cad of a baby daddy (Bob Marley's son Rohan) who left her and their FIVE kids to go off and marry some model. After that, Lauryn went cuckoo for cocoa puffs. She shaved her head, acted loopy at concerts (when she showed up at all), got in trouble with the IRS, went to JAIL!! and just seriously had a really hard-to-watch, broken-hearted breakdown.

But she's making a comeback and Lester absolutely loves her, so we took a chance and bought tickets to see her perform. I'm so glad we did. She sings with so much passion -- even moreso now that she's been through so much. It was a really good night, spent rockin' out with my baby. :-)

Before the concert, our friend Callie invited us to the Baltimore Museum of Art to hang out and make instruments during the museum's arts and crafts time. So we trudged over there and got to see the boys' friend Spirit, who Dean just loves. And we met some other very nice families and made a big mess with glue and scissors, construction paper and ribbons.

The boys surprised the heck outta me by being able to cut! I had no idea. In my house, we stay far away from scissors. Good thing their teachers are more adventurous. Also, Clair glued her lips together, using the glue stick like Chapstick. My kids are so creative.

And, lastly, I really made the most out of my days off.

Tuesday, I spent the day with Lester, hanging out and picking up a few things we needed to finish our Christmas decorations. And yesterday, I rode the school bus with my boys to their field trip (a play at Goucher College), came home, had lunch with them and went out and got my hair done!

I also got to just spend quiet, middle-of-the-day time with my kids, playing Christmas music and witnessing moments like this:

Which was really, really nice, because you all know how it is when you get home from work - all the harried task-completing, and end-of-the-day meltdowns. It's nice to get to see my children during a more relaxed time, warm and comfortable, safe, happy and loved.

If I didn't get another thing for Christmas, just having had this time with them would be absolutely enough.

Winter 2013: The season of museums

Happy New Year!

I am back at work and I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. It's amazing how quickly you can get out of a routine. My body still wants to pad around in pajamas and raid the refrigerator 15 times a day -- not sort through emails and Outlook appointments and invoicing problems. In fact, I am having trouble keeping my mind off of all the fun we had over the holiday break.

Sometime around Thanksgiving, I declared this winter the winter of museums. I wanted to start getting the kids out to see all of the wonderful things there are to see in our area museums. I intended to start in January, but since we had some time off to fill, we started last week. And somehow, we ended up doing three museums in three days!

On Saturday, Lester took the boys to the Baltimore Museum of Art, which is very close to our house, so I don't know why we don't go there more often. (Especially since it is free!)

He said the boys really enjoyed looking at all the art, and looking for "babies" and "animals."

"Look Daddy, I see an animal!"

Little art historians in the making.

He looks like he is really studying this.

On Sunday, Lester wanted to take down our tree, which was shedding pine needles at an alarming rate (and Clair was eating them just as quickly). So I decided to take the kids out of the house to my Mom's. My sister Kadija's kids were there, as usual, and my Mom really needed a break from babysitting, so on a whim, my Dad and I decided to take all the kids to the Smithsonian.
Kadija's 12-year-old opted out, so it ended up being me and Dad and SIX kids, including little baby Clairzee. We took the Metro on one of the coldest, windiest days of the year, but the kids had so much fun, we barely noticed. (Ask me later about my Dad's "shortcut," that had us walking around D.C. searching for the Museum of Natural History for an hour! On the coldest, windiest day of the year.)

At the Metro stop, waiting with their cousins for the train. Clair's off to the side in a stroller, kicking off her blanket no doubt.

The boys LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the Metro (which is also a hashmark on my Synapse Checklist. Ch-ching!) And the dinosaurs at the museum. And being around all their cousins.
It was a hectic, cold, crowded, long day. But their sheer joy was totally, totally worth it.

Their first ride on the D.C. Metro! They even met the conductor, which was to them the equivalent of me meeting Pharrell or Larenz Tate or Idris Elba.

Walking to the museum with Granddad. I heart this picture.

And then on Monday, New Year's Eve, we met up with our friends Geoff, Stacey and Hugo (who is also 2) for an event at the Maryland Science Center, which included party-hat and noisemaker stations, a performance by the band Milkshake, and a 12 noon ball drop and confetti bomb.

Again, this place made my boys SO incredibly happy. They had a supreme blast! They loved the kids' room (we had to literally pry them out of there); they danced along with the band; they made party hats, and they shrieked with delight when the ball dropped and burst, blowing yellow confetti all over the museum.

Hugo and a small glimpse of alllll the confetti! (Photo by the awesome Amy Davis, who was covering this event for The Sun!)

Cary, Dean and Hugo: Men at work.

Making a New Year's Eve party hat.

 

So, quite accidentally, I'm already well ahead of myself when it comes to the season of museums. Yay!

Next on the list: Hopefully meeting up with Beth for the "Play, Work, Build" exhibit at the National Building Museum; hanging out with Stacey and Hugo again at the Visionary Art Museum; meeting up with my sister and her kids at the new Children's Museum at the national harbor, and locally, the Walters Art Museum, the B&O Railroad Museum (otherwise known as the Train Museum) and more Maryland Science Museum -- because that place is so awesome, we bought a membership!

Lester and I did set goals for the year (not resolutions. Goals.) and one of them is to continue to find fun, enriching things to do as a family. I'd say we're off to a pretty good start.

2013 -- Bring it.