National Gallery of Art

Vivian has been curious about abstract art lately.  This is probably because, like her mother, she doesn't have much in the way of artistic talent, so splattered paint on a canvas seems approachable.  She and her best buddy were talking about abstract art last week, and since the mom and I are friends, and we both like art, we decided to take them to the National Gallery of Art today.  I knew they would need some kind of activity to keep them engaged, so I brought along a little notepad and a pencil for each of them.  It turned out to be a great idea.  They were so excited, they didn't even make it in the door before stopping to analyze one of my favorite Henry Moore sculptures.

They were equally delighted with the first few sculptures they found, and each girl worked on her own personal interpretation.

We were all ready to go into the galleries, when we noticed that everything on the main floor was closed off.  The stairs going up were also blocked.  Vivian, being the bold child she is, walked up to an employee who was probably on her way to lunch and asked her why we couldn't go upstairs.  Luckily, she picked someone friendly who explained to us that all the modern art galleries were under renovation until 2017.  I'm still a bit in shock about that, since it seems like a REALLY long time, but we moved on.  The walkway to the other building helped.  The girls loved the display of moving lights and the waterfall, so we spent quite a bit of time there.  This is them trying to draw the patterns while being carried along.

There was a jewelry sale at the gift store, and some of the necklaces and earrings received just as much careful analysis as the famous pieces of art.  We finally got them through, and up into the rotunda which they liked a lot.  

We walked into one of the galleries, and noticed that some of the paintings had numbered signs under them that said children's tour.  That sounded promising, but the girls were getting hungry, so we decided to feed them first.  There's a cafe with a buffet lunch right under the rotunda, and kids are only about $10, so that seemed like a good bet.  Vivian actually ended up eating roast chicken, grapes, bread, and vanilla ice cream, so I felt like it was money well spent.

After lunch, we went to information to ask how much the audio guides cost.  It turns out, they're free! Apparently, someone gave a grant to make sure they were free, which is awesome.  Vivian discovered her love for audio guides on our trip to Chiang Rai, and she was extolling their virtues to Kaitlyn, so both girls were excited to get them.  They went from gallery to gallery, searching for their children's tour numbers, and then listened intently to what the guide had to say.  I'll have to get one myself next time.  The girls smiled and giggled every so often, so it seems like it's a pretty good tour.

By that point, we had been at the museum for a few hours, and the girls were getting tired, so we called for our ride, the awesome Safta taxi service.  Both girls fell asleep on the ride back to Virginia, but they both also wanted to go back to the museum another time.  It makes me so happy that I can share my love of art with Vivian.

Keeping the Girls Busy

One of my main reasons for coming all the way to Virginia was to have easily accessible activities for the girls.  I knew the first week would be a jet lagged blur, so I signed Vivian up for camp starting our second week.  That meant we had to keep two groggy and grouchy girls busy during our first week here while the sole parent on duty was also jet lagged.  My mom still works part time, so my dad came to the rescue.  He played Elmo with Elena, and iPad with Vivi.

He was also great about taking Elena for walks, so that I could get some school work done.

It's nice to get the girls out of the house as much as possible, because they get a bit goofy after too much time spent inside.

The house is also not really set up for toddlers, so Elena can get into quite a bit of trouble when I'm not chasing after her.

We bought a gate for the stairs down to the basement, but figured she wouldn't be upstairs enough to warrant the expense of a second gate.  Of course, she took this as a challenge, and scared my mom half to death by escaping from where my mom was working and tumbling down the stairs.  Luckily the stairs are carpeted, and she rolled down them like a professional, so no damage done besides a fright for all concerned.

Another toddler problem we had was that my parents only have showers in their house, no tubs.  Luckily, they aren't the only people with this problem, so there's a whole line of cute inflatable baby tubs.  Elena is getting a kick out of her princess one.

Vivian has been a bit harder to keep happy.  She is very active, so before camp started, it was hard to keep her busy.  One of our best solutions was to have her wear herself out on the swing.

Thank goodness one of her best friends lives five minutes away.  They've had lots of play dates and adventures.  My sister Judy has also been a huge help.  Vivian absolutely worships her, so Judy and I took her to see the new Pixar movie, Inside Out,

and Judy had her over for a sleepover. 

Unfortunately, Vivian chose that next morning to wake up with a fever.  My kids like to keep us on our toes.  Of course, since it's Vivian, she was sick for a day and woke up the next day totally back to normal.  

For our second week here, Vivian went to camp, and I took Elena to Gymboree.  I was a bit worried since she didn't seem to like the Little Gym classes I took her to in Bangkok, but Gymboree was a huge hit.  She cried when we left, and when we came back, she was so excited that she practically jumped out of my arms trying to get into the play area.

Both girls had a great time with their activities, so week two has been a success.  We're moving into week three now, and Vivian doesn't have any camp, so we've got a list of fun activities to keep the girls busy and happy.  Hopefully it will go smoothly.

Jet Lag and Elmo

The first week sucked.  The girls wanted to sleep during the day and be awake at night.  I didn't want to deprive Elena of a nap, but when I let her nap, she went into DEEP sleep, to the point where I would put her in a sitting position, and she would just keep on sleeping.  At night, she would refuse to sleep, and would scream at the indignity of being put in her playpen.  The only solution was Elmo.

We spent large portions of the night watching Elmo.  Elena and I are sleeping in the basement, and Vivian is sleeping upstairs in the bedroom next to my parents'.  Vivian showed up in the basement around 2:00am to join the Elmo viewing party.  Day by day, it got better.  But there were still times in the afternoon when Elena clearly wanted to go to sleep, and the only way I could keep her awake was more Elmo.

While I was sitting next to her, trying to tune out Elmo's squeak, I indulged in several junky novels, so that was my silver lining.

By the time we got to the end of the first week, they were both sleeping for most of the night, and enjoying most of the day.  My parents' house isn't exactly toddler proof, but it makes up for it by having grandparents to shower the girls with affection, a piano to experiment on, and playground just a few steps down the sidewalk.  I think we're going to have a good summer here ;-)

From One Side of the World to the Other in Four Flights

Summer is the time when at least half of Nichada goes home, wherever home may be.  In a chicken and egg scenario there are almost no summer camp options in the area.  There are lots of options downtown, but they're expensive and ultimately too difficult to get to for us to consider seriously.  Add to that that Jeff was planning to be out of the country for work for the entire month of June, and I decided the girls and I should spend the summer with my parents, within easy driving distance of friends and summer fun options.

Bangkok is a post that qualifies for R&R (rest and recuperation), which means that twice during our tour we get money towards a trip.  My job became fitting what we wanted to do into the government provided budget.  We had already booked a Disney Alaska cruise to celebrate Jeff's 40th birthday this summer, so I knew we had to break our trip back to Thailand in Vancouver, which is the departure port for the cruise.  Since I was flying to the States with the girls by myself, I was hoping I wouldn't have to go through Vancouver on the way to my parents' as well, but when I did the research, I found out it would be $1000 more per ticket to have a different itinerary in one direction, so I bought two round-trip tickets, one from Bangkok to Vancouver, and one from Vancouver to Virginia, and braced myself for the trip.

The girls started off with smiles.  I got them an Auntie Anne's pretzel at the Bangkok airport, so they were munching happily.

The flight was about five hours long, and it got rough as we went along, because the girls were tired, but didn't want to sleep.  

We had enough of a layover in Seoul to grab some food and play for a bit.

We had been lugging two full sized pillows with us, so that the girls could sleep comfortably, and it paid off on the nine hour flight from Seoul to Vancouver.  The girls also got stuffed Pororo toys.  Love you Korean Air!

We put the pillows in the middle seat and the girls cuddled up like puppies.  It was so cute, but of course I was half holding Elena on my lap, so I couldn't get a picture.  I managed to doze a bit too, so the longest flight actually ended up being the easiest.  Luckily, I crammed some food in before the flight started, because airplane meals with a one and half year old just don't work, even when she has her own seat.

We had a ten hour layover in Vancouver.  Just the thought of that with two kids was enough to give me nightmares, so I checked to see if Vancouver has an airport hotel that we could stay in for at least part of the layover.  It turns out, they don't just have a hotel, they have a five star resort, The Fairmont.  I called to make a reservation for six hours in a room.  I asked for a crib for Elena, and, not only did we get a lovely wooden crib, we also got complimentary Johnson and Johnson baby bath products, a bottle warmer, and diaper disposal can, five stars indeed.  

Unfortunately, the room service prices were also five star, as in ridiculously expensive, but I figured that after airplane food (in Vivi's case) and no food (in my case) we deserved to splurge.  I got salmon and she got pancakes with fresh strawberries, yum!  I gave both the girls a bath, took a shower, and then we all took a nap.  Elena quickly realized that Vivi and I had the better set up, and demanded to join us.  Luckily, it was a king, so we all fit.

We slept for a couple hours, and then packed back up to check out.  The hotel is on the opposite side of the airport from the Air Canada terminal where we needed to check in, but, no worries, one of the hotel people got us an airport luggage cart and pushed it all the way to the other side of the airport with us.  

The Vancouver airport is not very big, and it's lovely to walk through.  There are wooden beams, totem poles, and a view of the mountains.  I'll have to take some pictures when we fly back through in July.  We enjoyed hanging out there for a while before our flight.  We found another fun play area, and the girls ran around and even made a little friend before we got on flight three.

This flight was about four hours.  Vivian didn't sleep, but Elena did.  I was busy stressing, because I realized that we were getting closer and closer to the boarding time for our next flight from Toronto to D.C., and you have to go through U.S. customs in Toronto before you board.  My stress was justified.  First of all, the Toronto airport is not just user unfriendly, it's user hostile.  There was no gate number on my boarding pass, and no information boards anywhere!  As I was dashing through the airport pushing Elena in the stroller with Vivian jogging behind, I finally stopped and asked a man at one of the money exchange booths where the flights to U.S. boarded.  Luckily he knew, but, again, there was almost no signage.  Customs was the usual time suck, and then I was "randomly selected" at security to have everything double checked.  

As we were running down the next part of the terminal we heard the dreaded "this is the final call for the Goerss party."  I could see our gate, so I shouted, we're coming!  But when we got there, there was no one at the booth.  I shouted hello?  Wondering where the person was who had just paged me, but there was no one around.  I had a moment of total despair.  There were closed glass doors leading to the jet way, and I looked through them to see if anyone was there.  On a whim, I pushed on one, and it opened.  I grabbed the stroller, yelled for Vivi, and we ran down the jet way.  At the bottom, they were just getting ready to close the plane door.  I begged them to let me on.  It was touch and go for a minute, but then they caved.  One of the baggage handlers took the stroller, and whispered, "I was rooting for you.  I told them to wait."  I just about cried.

The flight was just over an hour, and I spent the first half of it still stunned that we had made it on the plane at all.  Since we had already gone through customs in Canada, we got off the plane and just walked into the airport.  Vivi looked ahead and said, "I see Safta!  Can I run to her?"  I said, "Go for it," and off she went.  We had made it.

Saying Farewell to First Grade

Vivi is now a rising second grader!  Today is her first day of summer vacation, so, of course, one of her friends from class is over for a play date.  The school year finished up with all kinds of special activities.  On Tuesday, there was a poetry share.  Vivian and her classmates read poems they had written in their most recent writing unit.  They all did a great job.  I have lots of video, but no pictures, sorry.  Vivian's individual poems were really good, but the one that cracked everyone up was one she wrote jointly with one of the boys in her class, where they listed things they liked, but then the other one said they liked something else.  It was really cute.

The next day I was back for music share.  Students had the option of performing for their final music class of the year.  Vivian had enthusiastically signed up to sing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"  She has a great voice, but horrible stage fright, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go.  She started strong by getting up on the stage and introducing herself.

But when it was actually time to sing, she froze.  The music teacher smoothly transitioned to the next act, and after some recovery time, Vivian agreed to sing, but she wanted me to be on stage with her.  I sat on stage and she sang to me, but loud enough for everyone else to hear.  This is actually a big step for her in overcoming her stage fright, so I'm going to view it as a successful performance.

I got a day off of school visits, and then I was back again on Friday when parents were invited to come and watch the final gymnastics practice.  Again, I have mostly video of her running, jumping, rolling, and swinging, but I got a fun shot of her warm up bridge pose.

The following Monday was a pajama read-a-thon.  Vivian decided to read one of her favorites, The Three Ninja Pigs, to some of her friends.

The last day of school was a half day on Wednesday.  It was also crazy hair day.  Vivian and I opted for a bow bedecked hairdo.  

It was a fun finish to a great year :-)