Saturday in Washington D.C.

Saturday was a wonderful example of how parenthood reduces one's standards regarding productivity and sticking to one's well made plans. On Friday night, John's conjunctivitis returned after about four days of being clear; his eyes had already been clear when Mary and I went to the doctor, so he'd never been put on antibiotics. Here we were, stuck in D.C. on a weekend, so I decided to use the topical antibiotics for Mary and me on John, then take us all back to our family doctor on Monday. Meanwhile, we gave him steam baths to wipe off his eyes, used Purell on his hands often, and hoped for the best.

All this time, I'd been developing a sinus infection. I'd never had one before, so I kept thinking I was fighting one off. In retrospect, I already had a sinus infection before we even got to D.C. This is a miserable condition!

Our goals on Saturday were pretty modest and very achievable, we thought. We wanted to visit the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, walk up to the Washington Monument and the White House, let the kids nap in the hotel, then visit Mount Vernon.

John really enjoyed the Natural History Museum, but we were walking through only a couple of floors of it at breakneck speed: essentially at the speed of a three-year-old's attention span.

There are no restaurants around the Museum, it was lunchtime, and we were hungry, so we ate at the Museum cafe, where the food was good but shockingly expensive. Then we walked back to the car and just trying to switch parking spots and move around D.C. was its own comedy of errors. By the time we drove the short blocks to the Washington Monument, the kids were fast asleep, so we decided to let them nap in the car and we'd drive to Mount Vernon, tacking on some scenic driving time.

But when we got to the Mount Vernon parking lot and John woke up, his eyes were completely glued shut again and he was weeping with misery. We knew we couldn't keep dragging him around anymore and I remembered a recommendation I'd received for the CVS pharmacy Minute Clinics (thanks, Jamie!). We used my iPhone to search for one and found one seven miles away! We drove straight there and were seen within five minutes. John received a prescription of systemic antibiotics for his conjunctivitis and I received a prescription of systemic antibiotics for my sinus infection. We are such fans of the excellent service we received at the Minute Clinic!

We decided to drive the seven miles back to Mount Vernon to visit it while our prescriptions were being filled. We got there, unloaded the kids, walked up to the gate, and discovered it had closed at 4:00 instead of 5:30. So, we were out of luck. We drove back to the CVS, got our prescriptions, then began looking around for a restaurant for an early dinner. We had seen what looked like a really neat place right next to the CVS, but we decided to search for somewhere more in historic Alexandria. We were driving around, searching with the iPhone for family dining in Alexandria, and we kept reading good reviews of the very restaurant right next to the CVS!

So, back we drove to the CVS and ate dinner at the Greek restaurant next door (where John recognized the Parthenon).

We left the restaurant when the kids were melting down with fatigue, even though it was only about 6:00 p.m. Back at the hotel, the crying little ones went to sleep fast.

Chris and I really chuckled about how we got so few of our goals accomplished (seeing only the museum), the day was chaotic, and yet we thought it went "pretty well" and was fun. But just a couple of years ago, maybe even one year ago, such a thwarted day would have made both of us really upset and resentful. Parenthood is so good for developing virtues, even if the process is quite painful at times!