Jean and Jack Day

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Stimey

It’s not too late to talk about Mother’s Day, is it? Because I’d really like to talk about Mother’s Day. See, Sunday wasn’t just Mother’s Day in Stimeyland, but also Jack’s birthday. We were only a silver anniversary away from the perfect storm of celebration.

Wait a minute! Maybe we can achieve this perfect storm of celebration if I show you this slightly blurry photo of Gerbil Mother’s Day:

Although it probably doesn’t count if I took the photo a month ago, does it?

Mother’s Day was pretty much overshadowed by Jack’s birthday, which was totally fine with me, especially because I got the best handmade cards and gifts I could have possibly gotten. Sam made me a paper Minecraft cake and sang a song to go along with it, complete with an illustrated companion book.

Jack made me a bead necklace and a paper flower, along with a note that I had to hide from my other kids because it mentioned the secret iPad time he gets in the morning if he has good behavior at school the day before.

Quinn typed up a little note that said, “I love you and you are good. So I think you should get to sleep in 5 more minutes than you usually do. Then get dressed, come downstairs and fix us breakfast.” Then, he poked at me, said, “I regret putting my thumb in your armpit,” and ran to the bathroom to frantically wash his hands. Because I have cooties, evidently.

Also, Alex got me the best Mother’s Day card that he could possibly have given to a non-hugger autistic person like me.

I laughed and laughed. Alex gets me.

We then moved on to Jack’s big day. He opened presents and then all the males in my house played Minecraft together until I threatened to walk out of the house and go on Jack’s Big Birthday Outing all by myself because we were going to a petting farm and I wanted to pet some farm animals, thank you very much.

Also, Minecraft is stupid.

I finally bent my entire family to my will and we headed out to the farm. Where did we go, you ask? Why don’t we let Sam tell us?

He asked me to take this photo. It was the best Mother’s Day gift I could have asked for.

Wait. Where did you say you were again?

This would only be better if spoilsport Quinn had shown his face. God, I love my family.

There were all kinds of animals to pet and feed at this farm. Unfortunately, Jack was unexcited about all of them.

Wait. I mean he was SUPER excited about all of them.

We started with the fowl. My kids think chickens are really funny. Except Sam. Sam was a little bit afraid of the chickens. That’s probably a smart move seeing as how chickens are exceptionally pointy. In reality, however, chickens are probably more scared of us than we are of them.

This chicken in particular.
He was trapped in a Team Stimey-chicken sandwich—otherwise known as a chicken sandwich.

We saw every animal at the farm. We were allowed to pet all of them except for the zebras. I assume this is because every time I have seen zebras in captivity, there is a sign that warns people that fingers look like carrots* and you shouldn’t stick said fingers in zebra pens because zebras are assholes and will eat your hand.

Naturally, I asked Alex to put his finger in the zebra pen.

He’s really half assing feeding his finger to the zebra though. You can tell from the photo.

We also saw the pig race.

I felt that this was a little demeaning, but they didn't seem to mind.

I felt that the race was a little demeaning, but the pigs didn’t seem to mind.

One of those pigs was galloping. The other one sort of ambled at a fast trot. Once they raced, they ate out of their little piggy bowl and the first one snorted angrily and shoved the second one every time the second one tried to eat some food. I was all, “Hey! That first one is like me!”

There were a lot of baby animals at the petting farm. There were baby birds, pigs, llamas, bison, goats, a cow, and sheep.

This baby sheep made a whiny, complainy bleat that sound EXACTLY like Quinn.

Happily, this farm made Quinn, who is often quite grumpy, happier than I have seen him in a while. It was great to see his delighted, happy face. Baby animals are kind of his thing.

The sheer awesomeness of feeding sheep knocked him on his ass.

My favorite animal there was the kangaroo. Have you ever petted a kangaroo? OMG, they are so soft. And they have little hands that they use to scratch themselves in all kinds of fun places while you watch. Plus, if you get really close to them, they will try to eat your hair. I want a kangaroo.

Specifically, this kangaroo. I will name him Bartholomew.

I also have a thing for emus, even though they are kinda dicks. Have you ever petted an emu? Of course not, because they will peck you to death before you get close enough.

Aaaaaiiiiiggghhhhh!!!!!!

Baby chickens were nicer than the emus, although I’m sure if they could have gotten away with pecking my eyes out, they would have.

I would name this lil’ guy “Nugget.”

The unruliest animals were the ones in this cage though:

I would like to state for the record, that it was not ME who locked the children in there.

Revenge for the illegal jailing was pursued.

Sam will also peck you to death.

I have to say, Alex was skeptical about our trip to the petting farm. It was, however, one of our best outings in a long time. It was outside, so we could be loud and run; there was sufficient interaction to keep everyone’s interest; and we were able to see the entire farm and touch every single animal on it in two hours, meaning no one got overwhelmed.

See? Look? Most of them look not not unhappy!

Add some focus and take away one stranglehold and this photo is super close to being almost frame-able.

And that was Jean and Jack Day in Stimeyland. Pretty good, huh? The only thing I neglected to show you is Jack’s cake. I always get my cakes from the grocery store, but this time I was nervous because my instructions to the bakery, which they wrote verbatim on the order form, were “Make it look grassy. Kind of like it’s a field.”

They actually did a great job. Although it barely mattered considering that one of Jack’s gifts was a set of some awesome Minecraft figures and some plant foam cut into cubes. Jack’s face—hell, my whole family’s faces—were priceless when they saw this cake.

I came to dig.

I hope that all of you had Mother’s Day/Jack’s Birthdays that were as good as ours was. Even though I didn’t get the traditional Mother’s Day gift of getting to avoid my family all day, it was one of the better days that I’ve had in a long, long time.

* Fingers also evidently look like rodent pellets. I say this based on the fact that I poked my finger in front of Jetpack the other day and she latched on, leaving me to yank my hand up, GERBIL STILL DANGLING FROM MY FINGER BY HER TEETH, until she finally fell off. It was quite traumatic, I tell you. The trauma was made even worse because no one was as concerned by the blood oozing out of the tiny puncture wound on the tip of my finger as I was. Fair warning: Jetpack has developed a taste for human blood. Remain vigilant.

She’s Not Going to Kill Us, Is She?

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Stimey

I don’t even remember when I met Jen online. It was years ago, I know that. I loved her immediately, I know that too. She doesn’t blog a whole lot anymore, but she used to write at Problem Girl. If you haven’t read her, you should go read some of her archives, because holy hell is she hilarious. She is also an amazing person. She would probably shrug that off, but she is.

For a lot of years we’ve emailed and messaged and texted and made inappropriate jokes about lurking in each others’ driveways and peeking in windows. We always talked about meeting someday, but it seemed unlikely that someday would ever come.

Jen came to visit me in April. She flew all the way to the DC area just to visit me. Me. I feel pretty awesome about that. I mean that’s brave of her, right? For her to put herself out there to come and visit someone she’d never met? I’m sure that says something about her, but I’m also pretty sure that means that I am the most magnetic person in the world.

Or something.

Anywho, I was thrilled. I was nervous and excited to meet her, but it didn’t feel weird to open my home to someone I’d never met because she was already my friend. We’d just never happened to, you know, meet before. I mean, sure, Alex was all, “She’s not going to kill us, is she?” and my therapist’s eyes just about popped out of his head when I told him, but for the most part it didn’t seem strange at all.

And it wasn’t. She is easy and fun and hilarious and one of the best people I’ve met. We got along immediately. Having her in my home wasn’t stressful, which is always a risk for houseguests in Stimeyland.

I mean, sure, I panicked in the airport parking lot because I couldn’t find my car and also because I couldn’t find my keys, which were actually in my hand (“I thought they were in your hand, but I didn’t want to say anything, you psycho” is a paraphrase of what Jen said when I finally located said keys by lifting my hand toward my face), but after we got in the car and I drove in 16 circles to find the exit of the garage, everything was smooth sailing.

I was extremely relieved to discover that not only is Jen even more awesome in person than she is online, but she is my people. There are just a few of those. I feel really lucky to have found another.

See? People. And the White House.

Jen and I did everything in DC while she was here. You may think I’m kidding, but I’m not. We went to every monument and memorial on the National Mall, plus four museums. And the zoo. My feet still hurt.

She also introduced me to risotto, which I have never before eaten in my life. Can you believe it? We went to Joe Squared in Baltimore, which has something like 17 kinds of risotto on the menu. After I took my first bite, I was furious at myself for never having eaten it before. Jen was in town for five days. We drove to Baltimore to eat risotto twice.

See? My people.

I could talk for a long time about Jen and how awesome she is, but most of you probably don’t want to hear all the fun little jokes we came up with over the weekend. But I would like to take you on a little photo tour of parts of her visit.

I’m going to start with my favorite photo that I took of Jen during her visit. She is a photographer and for maybe the first time in my life, I wasn’t the person who took the most photos whilst out and about. There is a lot to photograph at Arlington National Cemetery, which is where we started.

Ironically, my photo of an awesome photographer could have been WAY better framed.

From there, we headed to the White House, where we both took a lot of photos, but then we found this tree that was almost even more interesting. This tree was otter interesting. (Don’t worry. That will make sense later.)

Have you ever seen such a thing?

Okay, fine. I’ll show you the White House too.

Algernon liked Jen too.

From there, we traveled down the Mall to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and then a looooong walk back to my car. That long walk back always sucks so much. I was smart enough the next day to suggest that we park near where we were going to end our day, which was brilliant. Weirdly though, this scheme involved a long walk to our first destination. Stupid giant National Mall. They could have crammed things a little closer for us lazy people, don’t you think?

But! The long walk was okay because we got to see some awesome sculptures like these…chairs?

I don’t “get” art.
But at least Algernon and Jen had a place to sit.

Then we found this very flamboyant pizza cutter.

Did I mention that I don’t get art?

This next piece of art entertained my brain for the remainder of the day. I’m pretty sure that Jen is going to kill me for posting this here, but I have to because OMG, WHO PUT THIS ON THE NATIONAL MALL?!

*whispers* I think this is a *quieter whisper* vagina. *knowing look*

All of this before we even set foot in a museum! We headed off to the speediest tours ever of the Natural History Museum and the American History Museum. It’s tough because you could spend an entire day in just one or two exhibits in any one of these museums, but we wanted to see a little bit of everything.

We ended up taking the teaser tour of DC. What? You want to check out the extensive and in-depth exhibit on human evolution? Sorry! Pick your favorite skull to look at because we have to go see the Star Spangled Banner!

I did manage to get a photo of Jen in the crystal ball that I always take photos through at the Natural History Museum.

You make time for important things like this.

From there, it was off to see the memorials we missed the day before.

Having lived here for a long time, I had already visited all of the places we toured in DC, except for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. I was super excited to go there. I can’t wait to take Jack there sometime. He is going to LOVE it. He absolutely loves his friend Martin, so I can only imagine his eyes if he were to see this memorial. It is gorgeous.

Right?

From there, we swung around through the Korean War Memorial and then began the long trudge back down toward the museum end of the Mall. We decided to bypass several of the museums lining the south side of the Mall because we were running short on time and also we needed to find food.

Of course, we had to traipse back down the mall, which included passing an ultimate Frisbee game and a kickball tournament to find that food. Happily, these hipster gatherings at least gave us something to make fun of on our slog down the Mall.

Fortunately I remembered that I had heard people talk about how yummy the food was at the American Indian Museum cafe, which is something that Team Stimey hadn’t experienced the other time we’d been to that museum, on a particularly ill-fated trip downtown with my children a while back.

It was a good decision to go there. (Fry bread!) Plus, because it was Jen’s birthday, it was totally legitimate for her to chug wine directly from the bottle in a museum cafe at lunchtime.

Seriously. Fry bread.

It was getting late in the afternoon, so we took a quick swing by the Capitol on our way to the National Gallery of Art. We also spent some time enjoying the pigeon hanging out on this statue’s hat.

Or at least *I* did.

We had a little over an hour at the art museum, which is totally enough time to pass judgment on all of the art hanging in the museum. I didn’t take any photos, maybe because I was having too good of a time listening to Jen complaining about the art at the museum. I will forever remember her standing in front of a Gauguin painting with a grimace on her face saying, “This is not a good painting.”

Honestly, I think she was right.

Once Jen started passing authoritative judgment on a few paintings, it was all over. I have spent every moment of every day since that moment pointing out faults in people (“This is not a good child.”), places (“This is not a good soccer field.”), and things (“This is not a good dead gerbil.”). You should try it. I think you will like it.

The museum closed at 5 (“Ladies and gentleman, the National Gallery of Art is now closed. Please make your way to the exit,” a guard bellowed loudly in a room where only he, Jen, and I stood.) and we had people meeting us at my house at 6 to go to a birthday dinner with Jen. It was 5:50 when it occurred to me that I should probably call Alex to tell him that people would be arriving on our porch and we wouldn’t be there yet. This was the first he had heard of people arriving on our porch.

(This is not a good wife.)

Alex all but hung up on me, saying (with a fair amount of resentment in his voice if I’m being honest), “I have to go clean now. Goodb—QUINN! SAM! JACK! GET IN HERE! PICK UP THIS TRASH! *click*”

Quinn almost didn’t let the first two people who arrived in, telling them, “You can’t come in. We’re cleaning.” For Jen’s and my blog-friend Susan, whom we were meeting in person for the first time, this was an abrupt welcome to Stimeyland. Fortunately, she knows what we’re like so I can’t imagine she was too taken aback. Can you imagine though? Showing up at someone’s house where you’ve never been and the person you’re going to see isn’t there yet, but there IS a surly Alex and an insolent 7-year-old telling you you’re not welcome? I probably would have gone to cry in my car.

Fortunately, things turned around quickly after Jen and I arrived and Alex forgave me/publicly shamed me in front of my friends. We had assembled an all-star cast for Jen’s birthday dinner.

Heather, Lindsay, Stimey, Jen, Susan

We had such a good time. I am in love with this group of women. We had Mexican food, margaritas, cake, and an offensive and hilarious party game. It was maybe my favorite night of the year thus far.

I’d appreciate it if you could look away from the piles of crap on my table and focus on the awesomeness of margaritas, Jen, and photos of awesome cakes.

The cake was a Minnie Mouse cake with a photo of Alex on it. It’s a long story. But worth it for the look on Jen’s face. I was pretty pleased with the cake and the writing that I forced the grocery store decorators to put on the top. Let me tell you, “Happy Birthday to my Internet Soul Sister” takes up a lot of space on a quarter of a sheet cake.

The next day we, along with half of the DC Metro area, decided to go to the zoo. Originally I had thought that this would be a fun thing to do with my kids. My kids didn’t want to go to the zoo though, so Jen and I got to go by ourselves. I have to say it was awesome and sliiiiiightly less whiny to go to the zoo with another adult.

I was pretty excited because I got to introduce Jen to a real, live panda bear.

Depressed panda is depressed.
Or asleep.

I have to tell you though, the best animals at the zoo were the Asian otters. There was a whole pack of these little guys and they were the best thing I’d ever seen. (These are good animals.) They swam. They sat on their haunches and looked at visitors. They ran in little adorable packs. Frankly, they set the bar pretty high for zoo animals that day. (Which leads me to, “Yeah, the elephant is interesting, but it’s not otter interesting.”)

DO YOU SEE? OTTER INTERESTING. (Also adorable.)

We saw lots of other animals as well. In fact, because of my poor navigation skills, we traveled the maximum uphill distance you possibly can at the zoo in order to see nearly every animal you can see at the zoo, including the invertebrates, which my kids never let me see because they are afraid of the spiders that are kept there with no barrier between them and the general public. Those spiders make an entire wing of the zoo off limits for most of Team Stimey.

One of our favorites was the hyrax, which seems to be the Debbie Downer of the animal kingdom. They are fun to anthropomorphize in the most dejected kind of way. They just look so disgruntled.

But athletic! How do you think he got up there?
The hyrax: “*sigh* Someone stuffed me up here. *grumble* I suppose I’ll just sit up here all day. *harumph*”

We also saw this monkey:

I mention him only because I'm impressed that I got a mostly non-blurry photograph of his face.

I mention him only because I like this photo.

After the zoo, we met my family for dinner. It was at that dinner that we were discussing the names that my kids want to give the kittens we are considering getting. Jack told us that he either wants to name his Steve, after a Minecraft character, or Jenny, after, well, Jen.

(This is a good name for a cat.)

I think it is safe to say that all of Team Stimey are fans of Jen. We miss her. We want her to come back. If it weren’t still snowing where she lives, we would want to go visit her right now.

I have felt lucky for a long time that Jen is my friend. Now that I have seen her in person and been able to have long conversations, I feel even luckier. Thank you for taking a chance and coming to visit, Jen. Thank you also for not killing us. We are going to be friends for a long time.

(This is a good friendship.)

*****

You all continue to bring magic by donating to the the Montgomery Cheetahs Cheetah-thon. Thank you so much for the most recent donors including an anonymous friend; Barbara; and my sister, her wife, and their family. Thank you all so much. So, so much. I love you. You all have donated $775 so far. You are amazing.

Jack and his teammates would be so grateful if you were to donate to his team. We’d also like it if you were to come out and skate with us on May 11. Details about the Cheetah-thon and how to donate are online.

Team Stimey’s Egg-cellent Adventure

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Stimey

Warning: Lots of egg puns ahead. Sorry.

This year, like every year, I had come to terms with the fact that Team Stimey was doomed to another year of celebrating Easter only with our regular family backyard Easter egg hunt on Sunday. (Jack found a 19th egg on Tuesday; where do you think that came from?) Then, on Friday, I got great news from my friend MCM Mama*, who introduced me to the lovely folks from Honest Tea, who had all-day passes to the White House Easter Egg Roll for my whole family.

I was so excited. I love big DC events. I mean, I knew it was likely to be a Team Stimey freakout fest, but with us, what isn’t?

Sure enough, on the way there, Jack was all, “I think I’m going to be sick,” and so we opened a lot of windows and then Quinn was all, “I am freezing!” so we rolled up most of the windows and then I suggested that we pull over, and Alex, who was driving us in the morning rush hour traffic, was all, “SERENITY NOW!”

Naturally, we walked almost entirely around the perimeter of the White House grounds in an effort to find the right entrance. During this long walk, both Alex and Quinn became increasingly disgruntled.

This was at the beginning of said walk before that smile disappeared from Quinn’s face entirely. I, however, kept that giddy grin the whole stupid time.

By the time we actually got past security, Quinn was not happy…until he met the most fun squirrel in the history of fun squirrels.

Quinn got within a couple of inches of this guy. Me: “Oh good. It’s rabid.”

He chattered happily about that squirrel right until we walked into the crowds and the chaos and the many characters wandering around. Me on the other hand? I was delighted. Especially when Smokey the Bear AND Woodsy Owl walked by together—it was like the holy grail of good samaritan animal costume characters.

I forced Jack to stand with me because it seemed more legitimate to pose with them if I had a kid with me.

I called, “Give a hoot!” after them as they departed. I don’t think anyone heard me. That’s probably for the best.

We decided to start with the egg roll, because, well the name of the event is the Easter Egg Roll and also because all of my kids were too old for the Easter Egg Hunt. There were dozens of reporters there with their cameras trained on the egg roll course. I was already imagining the local evening news with its footage of cute toddlers in Easter dresses rolling their eggs along with wooden spoons, followed by a shot of Quinn rolling on the grass and screaming as the anchor fake sympathized, “Aw, this little boy didn’t have much fun!”

I haven’t seen any such footage. Please don’t tell me if it exists.

Sam rocked his egg roll race against all those toddlers in their cute Easter clothes.

Sam, however, rocked his egg roll race against all those toddlers in their cute Easter clothes.

From there, it was over to the Eggtivity Zone where there were several different obstacle courses. Quinn had entirely checked out by this point and was playing Angry Birds on my iPhone, but Sam and Jack went through the obstacle courses several times.

Some properly and according to the rules…

…and some not.

Mid-obstacle race, the president and his family and the Easter Bunny showed up to greet Team Stimey…and the other folks in attendance. I guess.

Someday I am actually going to get a close up photo of that man.

Team Obama headed down to the egg roll area and Team Stimey headed off on an ultimately unsuccessful trek to find the people from Honest Tea to find some juice and say thank you. In a happy cowinkidink, we ended up penned in by hastily erected fences as the Obamas were headed off to various places on the lawn—the president to the tennis and basketball courts and the first lady to the healthy food section.

We might have gotten all up in Michelle’s face. Algernon took this opportunity to get reacquainted with Mrs. Obama.

Take note of the concerned looking lady in the mirrored sunglasses.

There is nothing I won’t do for you people.

That was pretty cool, right? Well. It got even cooler just after that. The people right next to us had some sort of photos from their school that they were forcing on Mrs. Obama and they told her where they went to school. She started to move on when Jack piped up with, “I go to ****** Elementary School!”

She stopped, turned around and came back asking, “Are you doing good there? Are you getting good grades?” Jack told her yes and then she told him, “Keep up the good work, babe,” and then she touched both Sam and Jack on their heads and I may or may not have started jumping up and down.

Jack and Sam, pre-conversation.

I don’t know why it is so exciting that she talked to my kids, but it was. Also, I love that Jack totally dragged her attention back. That kid has some sort of magnetic charisma. It is close to impossible to walk away from his awesome little face when he is is telling you something. Even the FLOTUS wasn’t immune.

Jack and the FLOTUS’ magic touch.

After that, it was just a matter of killing time and making jokes about unjust imprisonment as we waited for the president to finish playing sports so security could remove the fence between us and the exit.

Sam killed time by being his normal charming self. Algernon is going to need a bath.

Quinn killed time by collapsing to the ground again. I’m making a collection of these photos. (Luray Caverns? Check! The White House? Check!)

Jack killed time by learning—and then by using that magnifying glass and the sun to try to set some lady on fire.

Soon enough though the president headed back to the White House and we were free from our egg-citing adventure.

This photo is a *little* closer.

We headed out and collected our souvenir Easter eggs, which were passed out along with Peeps, M&Ms, and goldfish crackers. This was Quinn’s favorite part of the egg-venture.

You can see Alex and Quinn up there on the left. I felt I should point out that they were there as they didn’t figure prominently in this post.

From there, Alex headed back to work (sad) and the rest of us headed home to collapse on the couch (happy). I know that we’ll probably never go back to the egg roll now that we’ve done it once, but I am so happy that we got to experience it. Thank you so much, Honest Tea!

* MCM Mama just ran five half marathons in five different states in five days. She is a rock star. You should totally read her series of posts about those races.

Disclosure: Honest Tea provided my family with tickets to the Easter egg roll, which, although free, we would not have been able to obtain otherwise. A super nice rep for the company also dropped off loads of egg-cellent tea and juice from their line on my porch last weekend.

*****

I wrote an egg-ceptional column at White Knuckle Parenting about why I wanted to go to the egg roll even though I knew it would most likely be a nightmare: Surviving the White House Easter Egg Roll. Check it out!

Stimey’s Guide to Life, Part I

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Stimey

I’m not very good at life. I mean, sure, I bumble through with a fair amount of humor and joy, but I’m not very good at planning things in an adult manner. While most of you are flying, I am like Buzz Lightyear: I am falling with style.

My kids’ spring break starts tomorrow. Naturally, I was sitting around this afternoon making travel plans…for tomorrow. No better time to plan for a vacation than the day before, right? And no better time to plan car travel than right smack dab in the middle of a freak late-March winter storm.

I can’t even claim that I didn’t know the storm was coming because I planned the stupid trip the day before.

Also, we’re going to an outdoor destination.

I’m the best at this stuff.

It’s going to be me, my three kids, outdoor activities, a hotel with a pool, and an ADVENTURE! We’ll be back Tuesday…hopefully.

p.s. Next time Alex is all, “Hey, do you want to take the kids to Key West over spring break?” remind me to not be such a rigid moron that I refuse to consider it.

Proud

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Stimey

I’ve been pretty excited about January 21st for a long time. My family always celebrates MLK Day with a big todo and when it fell on the same day as President Obama’s inauguration? Well, I was ready to celebrate.

We were going to watch the inauguration on TV and then MLK’s I Have a Dream speech on YouTube and then we were going to have cake and it was going to be great.

Things changed though, when Jess from Diary of a Mom, who does so much fantastic advocacy work, ended up with an extra ticket to the inauguration, and I jumped on her coattails and rode them all the way to DC.

Algernon rode her coattails too.

I have a lot to say about our amazing day in (and eventual escape from) DC, but you know what is exhausting? Inauguration Day. Or more specifically, getting away from Inauguration Day. I will tell you all about it tomorrow.

Before I go to bed though, I will let you know that after I got home, we very happily watched Dr. King’s speech, complete with lively commentary from my three kiddos.

Then we sang happy birthday to Martin and had our cake, which was delightful.

Sam insisted on chocolate. Because, you know.

In sum, today is a day that I was proud to be an American and proud of the leaders and heroes we get to learn from. It was exciting to be able to listen to the president and his terrific speech that was so much about equality and fair chances and then come home to kids who are so very interested in figuring that whole thing out for themselves.

So, not just proud to be an American, but proud to be a parent of such great little kids. (And proud to be a friend to the wonderful Jess. Thank you so much for taking me with you. You are a blast and a half to hang out with.)

Happy Inauguration Day, America. And Happy Birthday, Martin!

Stimey on Top!

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Stimey

We made it to the top of the Empire State Building today and it was clear and beautiful and amazing.

And windy. It was also windy.

This is actually the only photographic evidence that I was actually in New York with my family this weekend.

This is the only photographic evidence that I was actually in New York with my family this weekend.

I put my hair in a bun while in the midst of the windiness and then left it that way for the next several hours because I forgot that I did that. You would think Alex would have been kind enough to mention the rat’s nest at some point. This is why you should always travel with at least one girl.

Look Out, New York! It’s Team Stimey!

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Stimey

Team Stimey is in New York this weekend because Phish is playing here and I think Alex finally felt guilty for leaving us every New Year’s to see shows, so this time he made us come with him.

We drove up yesterday—and thanks for that two hours spent getting to the Lincoln Tunnel, New Jersey—and abandoned our kids with a stranger half an hour after arriving. I think it worked out because all of our valuables, including the three children, were still in our hotel room when we got back, and Sam had asked the babysitter for her phone number.

(“You should ask girls your own age for their phone numbers,” is what he says she told him. This is good advice I should have given him two weeks ago.)

Some friends of ours last night at the show asked us what we were going to do with the kids today and we were all, “EVERYTHING.” It turns out that EVERYTHING turns quickly into JUST THE ZOO after you stand in line at the Empire State Building to find out that snow has made it so there is no visibility on the observation deck, so why don’t you just come back tomorrow, m’kay?

Also, it may seem strange that we considered riding an elevator and going to the zoo to be EVERYTHING, but if you consider we ended the day with Quinn standing in the middle of the children’s zoo flapping his hands (water flying off of his soaked gloves) screaming, “I want to go home!” then, yeah, two destinations is EVERYTHING.

Also part of that EVERYTHING were cab rides and long walks through the city streets and life as SUPER TOURISTS. If you are in New York this weekend and you see five people being the motherfucking dorkiest five people on the planet, look closer. It’s probably us.

What? Us? Tourists?

It would be untrue to say that our first tourist site was the Empire State Building though. Because before that, there was this:

Of course this photograph of a cat asking for money is better than all of New York City put together.

Then Quinn spilled chocolate milk at a restaurant for the second time in three days, but at least this time he spilled it on himself instead of me and it was at a diner with bare tables instead of a lovely adult Italian restaurant with white tablecloths.

We made the kiddos walk to the Empire State Building, stopping along the way to take delightful photos that we’ll be sharing with family for years to come to show them how lovely and wonderful we are on vacation.

Or not.

Quinn: “Imma stand waaaay over here.”
Sam: “Brrrr.”
Jack: “Bunny ears for Sam!!”
Alex: “I don’t think I’m in this picture, so I’ll check my phone and drink whatever is in this brown paper bag.”
Stimey: “I’m going to take a picture of this sign instead of the interesting building itself.”

That brown-bag beverage was actually orange juice that Sam wanted to take with him after breakfast. Alex carried it ten blocks, into the Empire State Building, and through the security line before Sam decided he might not want it. It might even be in the souvenir photo that gets taken of all visitors. We didn’t buy that photo, mostly because Quinn was freaking out about the fact that, “WAIT JUST A GODDAMN MINUTE. HOW MANY FLOORS UP?” and we were all, “Huh, maybe we should have asked the kids if they were afraid of heights before we embarked on this journey, but it is MILES too late now.”

Some families put together social stories to prepare their kids for things like this. We are more of a Surprise/Immersion Therapy sort of family. Although I’m starting to rethink that.

Anywho, after we went up the escalators and went through security and got our souvenir photo taken and then it started to snow, we bailed and went to the zoo. There my kids behaved like animals.

Oh, wait. Those ARE the animals.

Do you ever just kind of wish you could be a sea lion? ‘Cause I do.

The zoo was perfect for us. It was small and had good animals, including those fabulous sea lions above. If I had one complaint, it would be that the polar bears, snow monkeys, and snow leopard were way less excited about the snow than I would have expected. In fact, all of those animals were curled up hiding from said snow.

Puh. Lease. If you are going to have “polar” or “snow” in your name, the least you could do is some frolicking for us.

My kids were super delighted though, because they are HUGE Madagascar fans, so seeing that the Central Park Zoo really exists and features some of the things from the movie/TV show blew their little minds.

We even got to this clock right on the hour when it played music and moved. Good karma, right there.*

* If you have any comments about bad karma and our timing at the Empire State Building, you can just keep them to yourself, thankyouverymuch.

Then we went to the children’s zoo and there was the hand flapping (we kept telling the kiddos that if they stopped picking up snow, their hands wouldn’t be as cold, but they wouldn’t listen), so we scrapped our subway plan and went with the cab plan and then dropped by the CVS right next to our hotel to buy the munchkins the ice cream they wanted.

I know. Children are inexplicable. It was freezing, THEY were freezing, and all they wanted was ice cream.

Then I think they did stuff in the hotel room, but I was napping, so I don’t know what it was. Go ask Alex.

The kiddos are all asleep in their beds now and because Alex doesn’t get home until late, I get to choose which bed I want. (I will choose the one full of just Jack instead of the one full of Sam and Quinn.) Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get to post some photo of the spectacular view from the top of the Empire State Building (also hopefully with a calmer Quinn—I social storied the shit out of him this afternoon).

Wish us luck!

Stimeyland

Get your quirk on.

Category Archives: things to do

Jean and Jack Day

She’s Not Going to Kill Us, Is She?

Team Stimey’s Egg-cellent Adventure

Stimey’s Guide to Life, Part I

Proud

Stimey on Top!

Look Out, New York! It’s Team Stimey!

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