So, we just got back from a trip to D.C. (which explains the lack of posts as of late). We saw some important things, you know, like the White House and other large buildings where a lot of highly-paid people hold our very lives in their hands. As usual, I spent my time trying to explain the significance of the places we visited and my children spent their time trying to tell me to just be quiet and could we please turn The Wheels on the Bus CD back on.

We also visited my brother who is glad to be nearing the end of his first year at the U.S. Naval Academy. The first-year students—”plebes” they call them—have a lot of rules to follow. My brother isn’t so stoked about the curfew of 10 pm and the mandatory bedtime of 11 pm. He often thinks about how he wouldn’t have so many rules if he had attended a “regular” university. But I say a curfew and mandatory bedtime don’t sound too bad, especially when (a) you don’t have to pay tuition, (b) you actually get a monthly paycheck for going to school, (c) you get a boatload of free stuff like a computer and lots of clothes that are tailor-made for you and given how hard it is for those of us taller than any normal human being (read: we cannot find clothes that fit us), tailor-made clothes are well-worth a curfew and mandatory bedtime…in fact, it would be totally worth a 6 pm curfew and 7 pm mandatory bedtime. Hmmm, 7 pm mandatory bedtime and a brand new, tailor-made wardrobe…suddenly I’m beginining to think I should join the Navy.

We went to the National Zoo too. The best thing about it was not having to pay anything to get in. Now, I do realize that the tax check I will send in tomorrow to the IRS is really my admission to the zoo, but still, I liked being able to walk through the front gates and that was it. Just walk through the front gates. (Now charging $1 for the zoo map is another story, but whatever.) And true to form, my children much preferred the ride to and from the zoo on the Metro than the actual zoo itself.

And oh yeah. Either I’m getting old, or the drivers in D.C. are maniacs. (I’m still processing this one.)

And I am compelled to mention that which was the pinnacle of our trip (OK, other than the visit with my brother). And that is of course, my beloved, my one-and-only, my oh-please-come-to-where-I-live, IKEA. Because anytime I am within a 50 mile radius of an IKEA, it beckons me. Oh, how I love thee IKEA.

And perhaps the funniest moment:

At one point, the kids and I were waiting in the car for my husband (who was attending a conference—thus the real reason for the trip). We had agreed to meet him at a certain time but his conference session went later than expected and everyone in the car started getting cranky, myself included. So I said, “WHERE. IS. DADDY?”

The question hung in the air momentarily until my 4-year-old son calmly replied, “Maybe he’s fighting a fire.”