Earth Week is a great time to get kids out in nature and learning about ecology. However, as there are often April showers, hiking isn’t always an option. So here are some inside and outside places to go in the greater D.C. region to explore environmental sustainability.
I’m a fan of “big art” – sculptures that fill entire rooms, take up your entire scope of vision, and make you lose yourself inside of. So when I heard about the Renwick Gallery’s Wonder exhibition, I knew we had to go. Nine rooms, each featuring a thematically and physically large piece designed to provoke wonder, hit all of my aesthetic buttons. While bringing a little kid to an art museum is always a bit of a crapshoot, I hoped that Sprout would enjoy it as well.
Arriving at the museum on Saturday, we found that we were in luck – we happened to come on the Smithsonian art museums’ Family Fun Day. While people have generally been welcoming when we’ve brought him to art museums in the past, this just added an extra layer of normalcy and acceptance.
From the museum’s formal lobby, we entered the first room, filled with sculptures crafted out of sticks collected from the forest floor. Weaving our way around, it evoked the feeling of being somewhere ancient, hidden and enchanted. It was a fairy tale wonderland, a place where gnomes or huge, intelligent birds might make their home. In fact, we actually used children’s stories to relate it to Sprout. We remarked, “This is what Big Bird’s nest might be like!” and “Doesn’t this remind you of the second house in the Three Little Pigs?” (Although he might not have fully understood the point of that story – he said he would like to live in a house made of sticks. Of course, if they were this lovely, perhaps I would too.)
As a kid, my idea of adventurous eating was that I went to a deli that served tongue. (I never ate tongue, but the mere presence of it on the menu was enough street cred for me.) Admittedly, I didn’t live somewhere with a whole lot of options – all we had in my town for years was a couple of average Italian restaurants, a pub, and a Friendly’s.
But now, living in the D.C. suburbs, we are absolutely spoiled for choice. D.C. itself has a thriving foodie culture and our suburb has a number of immigrants who have brought their delicious food with them. So I’m dedicated to ensuring Sprout is exposed to all sorts of cuisine. So far, we’ve had Indian, Thai, Lebanese, dim sum, and authentic Chinese dumplings. But last weekend, we went a step more adventurous than we ever had before – Ethiopian.
Crafting is in my blood, even though I am not a Pinterest mom. My mom is High Mistress of Preschool Crafts and Perfectly Wrapped Gifts. When she wasn’t sewing my Halloween costumes, she loved dragging my dad and I around to craft fairs. Despite these fairs’ variable quality, I grew to appreciate beautiful hand-made things, from their creators’ unique vision to the ethics of buying small. So I love Crafty Bastards, DC’s annual professional-level craft fair supported by the local alternative newspaper. This past weekend, they held its first indoor winter edition (Crafty Bastards: Cabin Fever) in all of its hipster glory.
Buying stuff – even from small crafters – may seem contradictory to my simplifying goals, but I had a very particular focus: baby clothes and accessories. Although the new baby will inherit most of Sprout’s clothes and toys, I want him to have at least a few of his own things as well. Even though he won’t know the difference, I don’t want everything to be a hand-me-down. One of my worries is that I’ll compare him to Sprout too much and not value him as an individual. Buying a few things just for him provides a little bit of peace on that front.
Hecht Warehouse Lobby
Unlike the summer event that’s held outside, Crafty Bastards Cabin Fever was in a warehouse. But it wasn’t just any warehouse – a development company is in the process of turning into swanky condos. It was the most hipster place I’ve possibly ever been, both the good and bad of that term. From the food trucks outside to the distinctly steampunk lobby, it oozed cool. The lobby simultaneously made me think “Well, this is a bit much” and “This is really cool.”
In contrast, the booths were in the unfinished part, a veritable wonderland of interest for a kid. The organizers used the unpainted wall as a canvas, commissioning an artist to spray-paint a mural. Sprout enjoyed pointing out “pink flamingos!” several times. The uneven floor, especially one place where there was a gap between two concrete slabs and another where it sloped dramatically, were also big points of interest. Sprout walked up and down, back and forth, feeling how the changes in the floor felt and affected his balance. Most importantly, the large, open area created wide aisles to run down. Sprout usually did a good job holding our hands, but I let him wander where it wasn’t too crowded. (With me close behind, of course!)
When we weren’t chasing our child, Chris and I did manage to find some adorable clothes for the new baby. Mirasa Design had lion-patterned pajamas and supported literacy programs in developing countries. I couldn’t pick just one, so we bought two screen-printed onesies from Earth Cadets. From Stronge Designs, we not only picked up a onesie, but the seller talked us into getting a matching shirt for Sprout. It was on sale! I particularly liked that all of the vendors had great gender neutral clothing. It’s easy to find adorable stuff for little girls, but clothes for boys often shift abruptly from overly babyish to bizarrely aggressive. (Or worse, outright sexist.)
There were also a number of displays with items we loved that just didn’t fit our needs at the moment. Sprout was drawn to the booth of an artist who did huge, colorful paintings that he then nicked up like graffitied school desks. He spent several minutes looking at a painting of a garbage truck and two different ones of whales. The person at the booth (who I think may have been the artist’s wife) explained to us that the trash truck picture was actually inspired by one of her toddler son’s favorite books, Trashytown! Definitely one we’ll have to check out at the library.
Via Joe Engel
Sprout also liked the handmade wooden cars at Christina Boy Design, which I may purchase later for the little one when he’s older. Zooguu’s mounted dragon heads were fantastic, but Sprout had his eye on the smaller dinosaurs. All of the artist’s items were particularly neat because she made each one with fabric scraps, making them both envi
ronmentally sustainable and totally unique. I came very close to purchasing a print of a raccoon under the stars for the baby’s room from Small Doses of Wonder, but I wanted to settle on a definitive theme first. As Chris said, if we ended up going with the jungle theme over the forest, the print would be like a raccoon on vacation.
We even sampled a few of the food vendors, with Harper Macaw handing out pieces of chocolate. Much to my surprise and delight, Sprout enjoyed the 74% dark chocolate (or at least he didn’t spit it out), a far cry from the milk chocolate most kids prefer.
On our way out, we hit up a couple of the non-buying opportunities for fun. A craft table with patterned paper and shaped hole punches held Sprout’s attention for at least 10 minutes. He sat on my lap as he happily punched out a bunch of hearts and airplanes. The photo booth – which I was more excited about – was less successful. He refused to wear a hat – not even a fireman one – and protested when I wanted to put on oversized sunglasses. While I wasn’t going to make him wear anything, I’m also trying to teach him he can’t dictate others’ choices, so ignored his directions on the sunglasses. As a result, he’s vaguely frowning in all three photos, while I’m making odd faces or trying to fix my hair because I couldn’t figure out when the camera was going off. At least the pictures were free!
Crafty Bastards Cabin Fever offered a great opportunity to get out of the house after almost a month of focusing on tidying. I’m glad that we have the chance to browse and buy from such great small artists and crafters on a regular basis.
Spending two weeks with your extended family for the holidays is lovely, but you really need to get out of the house sometimes. That’s why when we were recently in upstate New York, we brought Sprout to not just one, but two different local museums. Unlike the New York State Museum, which was a staple of my childhood, I wasn’t intimately familiar with either of them. Both the Museum of Innovation and Science in Schenectady and the Saratoga Children’s Museum had been completely overhauled since I had visited them, with the Saratoga Children’s Museum moving to an entirely different location altogether. In contrast to sharing my favorite experiences with Sprout, these museums provided chances for us to explore them together.
GE’s all-electric car.
The Museum of Innovation and Science is a bit of an odd duck. Schenectady is home to General Electric’s research division, so it has a deep regional history. In addition to a historical exhibit on important local discoveries, it also featured a large section on MRIs and an all-electric vehicle GE built in the 1970s.
But the museum doesn’t limit itself to its geographic location, touching on space missions, alternative fuels, renewable energy, fluid dynamics, and random “sciency” things like giant Legos. It had some terrific hands-on demonstrations, including ones where you control a mini-tornado and become part of a giant 
circuit. The museum even had one of the very few things I remembered from childhood, a phosphorescent wall that left your shadow “imprinted” on it after you moved away. Sprout seemed to understand why it was neat, but was not impressed enough to stand still for it more than once.
Only one thing and one thing alone seemed to truly impress him – a huge model train exhibit. As the seasonal display, it was prominent at the very start of the museum. Sprout immediately clambered up on one of the stools nearby and watched it intently, as if anything was going to change in the hundreds of times the trains went around the tracks. 
Admittedly, there was plenty to look at. In addition to a normal town setting, there were two carnivals with tiny moving rides, a river with sea monster Champ, an ice skating rink, a train with an aquarium in it, and oddly, an oil refinery.
During our first round of train-watching, he parked himself in front of one of the carnivals, staring at the red and blue trains chugging around. We managed to drag him away to see the other exhibits, but he soon remembered his purpose and literally ran back to the trains. The second time, he practically cemented himself in front of the oil refinery section, a location that baffled and saddened my eco-justice warrior heart. Later on, I figured out that he just really liked watching the trains going in and out of the tunnel, a fact I picked up on after hearing him talk about the tunnel for the 10th time or so. Fhew – parenting crisis averted.
Between the two spots, we spent a full 45 minutes watching the trains go around and around. We tried to talk to Sprout, but the conversation rapidly devolved into him repeating the same observations over and over again. Rather limited subject matter. My mom, ever the extrovert, tried to engage the crusty old volunteer manning the display in conversation. However, he was hilariously uninterested in discussing much of anything, responding with dry, unhelpful, succinct replies.
While the featured exhibit was clearly the star of the Museum of Innovation and Science, we had nearly the opposite experience at the Saratoga Children’s Museum. Sprout was only somewhat interested in the event we went for, but enjoyed the rest of the museum heartily. With our friends unavailable on New Years Eve and no desire to tromp around in the cold, we thought we’d try something more kid-centric. Last year, Chris and Sprout attended a noontime New Years Eve count-down at our local nature center, and enjoyed it a lot.
The Saratoga Children’s Museum’s New Years Eve dance party seemed to fill a similar niche, wrapping up at the terribly late hour of 3 pm. Like any good New Years party, it had music, balloons and funny hats. Sprout gravitated to the crafts table, whereby the magic of glue sticks, glitter, and an enthusiastic toddler turned a mere sheet of construction paper into a big mess. He also wanted one of the golden crowns, which surprised me because he generally doesn’t like hats. It turned out he only liked the idea of it; Chris wore it the rest of the day, jauntily perched upon his head. While we danced a bit to disco music, we mainly threw balloons at each other and played a mini-basketball game. Overall, Sprout was a lot less interested than I thought he would be. He adores dancing at home, but just wasn’t that interested there. (He loves singing at home, but doesn’t sing in music class either, so maybe it’s just a private vs. public preference.) Instead, he wandered out the door after less than a half-hour. On the other hand, he did mention the dance party several other times that day.
Fortunately, there were plenty of other things to do at the museum. The very first thing he headed for was a fake fire engine, which was rather funny considering he refused to get on a real fire truck when visiting the local firehouse the day before. The upstairs also had a play veterinarians’ office, grocery store, bank, school and diner. While Sprout’s little too young to understand the bank and the school was cluttered, the diner and vet’s office were just his speed. He eagerly listened to the stuffed dog’s heart with the stethoscope and stabbed it with the toy needle. While I love that he loves animals, I really hope he doesn’t start asking for a pet!
Downstairs had the ever-popular train table and giant bubble ring, along with some more locally-oriented exhibits. One was a mock-up of the real Congress Park in Saratoga, where Chris and I had our first kiss. Along with a scattering of puppets, the “play version” had animal costumes where kids could pretend to be a bug in an exoskeleton. Sprout was tickled at pulling the sides of the ladybug around him, especially when I put the bug-eye glasses on him.
But the most unique thing was a large model of the trolleys that used to transport people between Saratoga and neighboring towns. The museum cleverly had a ticket booth with different colored tickets matching your destination. Sprout reveled in sitting in the driver’s seat, taking tickets, turning the wheel and saying “all aboard!” It was challenging coaxing him away from it so other kids could take a turn.
Because I didn’t have a lot of expectations either way, the only disappointing thing about both museums was that my dad couldn’t fully participate. Because of a torn ACL, he didn’t come to the Schenectady museum at all and spent the time at the Saratoga one sitting away from the action. There’s no way in hell he would have danced – my wedding and his own were the rare occasions that happened – but he would have been able to interact more if he wasn’t stuck sitting the whole time. Fortunately, we had a lovely lunch at a nearby restaurant beforehand, so we had quality time together there.
It was good to return home and rediscover some little gems that I would have never gone to as an adult. I’m glad to see the area surrounding my hometown is still serving its youngest residents well!
Our Christmas this year involved two whole weeks with extended family. With annual leave I had to use by the end of the year, Chris, Sprout and I visited upstate New York from the weekend before Christmas to the one following New Years. My parents and Chris’s parents live within five minutes of each other, making it easy to visit both in a single trip. They also know each other quite well, so they enjoy doing things together. But while we had a wonderful time, not everything went holiday perfect.
High: Having lots of time to participate in holiday activities around the region. From riding on the Polar Express to visiting the train display at a local museum, we got out of the house quite a bit.
Low: The fact that my dad was stuck on the couch most of the trip. Three weeks ago, he stepped forward while playing Pickleball (aka old folks tennis) and felt a pop in his ankle. A visit to the doctor revealed that he had partially tore his ACL, a devastating injury even if you aren’t a professional athlete. To recover, he had to be completely off his feet for two weeks and then have another two months in a stabilizing boot. So he was totally out-of-commission for most of our trip. While my dad is a quiet person, he nonetheless has a calming, light-hearted presence that was sorely missed on our outings. Even when things don’t go as planned, a well-timed, ridiculous comment from him can make me laugh. Plus, I hated that Sprout couldn’t spend that quality time with his grandfather. The one upside was that Sprout was remarkably understanding of the situation. He loved snuggling up on the couch to read books with his Pop and was great about not touching his ankle.
High: Cutting down the Christmas tree. One of Chris’s family’s long-standing traditions is to cut down their own Christmas tree at Bob’s Trees. As we didn’t get a tree for our house this year, I wanted to bring Sprout there to carry on the experience. Because my dad was out of commission, Chris’s parents were kind enough to come with us. We tromped out to the woods, the ground barely coated in snow. My parents had picked out and marked the tree weeks before, so we didn’t need to walk to kingdom-come to find a decent one. After chopping down the tree, we walked back to the car singing Christmas carols, child and adul
t alike garbling most of the lyrics. In the farm’s indoor snack bar, we sipped hot chocolate, gazed at their Christmas tree and checked out their igloo made of recycled plastic bottles. Back outside, we said hello and waved to their two reindeer, who looked bored and sleepy. That night, Sprout declared that seeing the reindeer was his favorite part of the day.
Low: I left some key details out of the above description. While everyone else was cutting down the tree, I had to go to the bathroom. By the time I caught up, they were dragging it to the car. About halfway back, Sprout declared he wanted to carry the tree. He then immediately rejected every branch we offered for him, instead screaming like he was possessed and flailing all of his limbs. Any attempt to connect with or console him was met with further flailage. We finally picked him up, deposited him in his car seat, and restrained him enough to snap him in. Thankfully, changing the scenery and situation gave him enough space to calm down.
High: Decorating the tree. My parents have a wonderful collection of Christmas orn
aments, each of which have personal meaning. Pulling them out and recalling how or why we got them always brings back a slew of memories, from the Baby’s First Christmas ornament from the winter before I was born (my grandmother got it on sale) to a crab ornament from Ocean City this year. Because my mom used to call my dad Pooh Bear, we have a large collection of Winnie the Pooh ornaments that Sprout adored.
Low: Scrambling to ensure Sprout couldn’t touch the delicate ornaments and repeating “Don’t pull ornaments off the tree” a million times.
High: Having Sprout be incredibly well-behaved at the surprisingly long Christmas Eve Mass at Chris’s parents’ church. He actually said “the big church!” was his favorite part of Christmas Eve that night.
Low: It was a long service, topped by a heavy dose of Catholic guilt in the priest’s homily.
High: The joy of Christmas morning. Our family is pretty non-materialistic, but Christmas is the one time of year we buy each other things. Chris loves the “cornucopia” of piles of presents spilling out from under the tree and both sets of grandparents go a little over the top. Sprout was also much more aware of the idea of getting presents this year than last year and reacted with a new enthusiasm. At the same time, he doesn’t have overblown expectations, so he actually appreciated everything and didn’t show disappointment the way older kids sometimes do.
Low: There were so many presents that Sprout actually got a bit bored about opening them by the time we got to my in-laws’ house. Instead, we opened the rest of ours while he played with some of his new toys. I also ended up with a ridiculous number of hand towels as presents. That’s what I get for mentioning that we needed more of them.
High: Playing with all of our presents. The presents we bought Sprout enabled lots of new experiences: we played Sprout’s first game together (the Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game), put on a show with his new puppet theater, and watched him “ride” his new stick horse around the house. The adults even got to enjoy our presents – we listened to the soundtrack to Hamilton, the rap musical about the Founding Fathers, and played games we gave each other, including Love Letter and Tokaido.
Low: Fitting all of the presents in the car was like a version of Tetris inside Tetris where you crammed smaller shapes into bigger ones and then all of the big ones into a giant box that’s a really weird shape. Priuses aren’t meant to carry this much stuff.
High: So much wonderful food. Both my mom and mother-in-law make way too much delicious food for holidays, leaving us with days after days of left-overs. My mother-in-law also decorates with candy; her living room houses several bowls of dark chocolate and M&Ms throughout December.
Low: The fact that I kept eating all of said food way past the point where I should have stopped.
High: Incredible amounts of time with our family. Chris and I are both very close to our families and of course, our parents love spending time with their only grandchild. Sprout also loves spending time with them – he runs to their front doors and greets them with huge hugs. Quality time was at an all-time high, especially with baking. He helped Chris’s mom make apple pie and sugar cookies, rolling out the dough, placing the apples in the pie, and cutting out the cookies. He and my mom made a gingerbread house, which he was particularly keen on after the tenth or twentieth time they read the Gingerbread Man and Jan Brett’s Gingerbread Baby. While he loved rolling out the dough, he was surprisingly uninterested in decorating the house itself. While my mom was encouraging him to stick Frosted Mini-Wheats on the roof as shingles, he was much more interested in eating Reeces Pieces instead. 
Other unintended consquences of said quality time was him learning the Beans, Beans The Musical Fruit song from my mom. Thanks, Mom.
Low: I’m a bit of an introvert at heart, so constantly being around people was kind of exhausting. Shuttling Sprout between the two houses and managing all of the necessary logistics (bedding for naps, cups/utensils for meals, etc.) further exacerbated that issue. I was so preoccupied with fulfilling everyone else’s plans that I completely forgot about a lunch with a former boss that I hadn’t seen in years. In addition, all of the attention made Sprout a little spoiled in the short term. Between mid-day cookie snacks and infinite affection, he reacted much more poorly than usual to the times he needed to do something that he didn’t want to. “Nope!” was his favorite phrase for the last few days of the trip.
High: Dancing together at my in-laws house. As mentioned previously, my mother-in-law has a large collection of singing Christmas decorations. Sprout’s favorite ones this year were a set of Disney characters that play different instruments. He’d say, “Mommy and Daddy (or Grandma and Grandad or Aunt Melissa and Uncle Steve) dance to Mickey,” then drag us over to the table and then press one of the characters. We’d then join hands and trot around in a circle, like a weird version of square dancing. At the end, he’d yell “freeze!” and we’d stand still with jazz hands or something equally absurd. It was the sort of thing you’d only do with a child, but be so glad that you were. His smile was enough to keep me dancing for a long time.
Low: We did end up listening to the Disney characters at least 50 times.
High: Having lunch with a number of our high school friends. Chris and I were high school sweethearts and are still close to a number of our friends from that time. Fortunately, we were able to get a number of them together, including one we haven’t seen in nearly a decade and has almost no online presence! True to character, he announced an absolutely outrageous plan – setting the world record for sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in the smallest sailboat ever. Even our friends with less over-the-top ambitions had much of their lives to share that just aren’t the same discussed over social media. We enjoyed each other’s company so much that we stood outside the restaurant for a half-hour after they closed. It was one of those times you reconnect with people in a way that has instant intimacy. We still trust each other with the deepest parts of our lives, no matter how physically far apart we are.
Low: The only disappointing thing was that we eventually had to leave. Also, we couldn’t bring Sprout along because it was in the middle of his nap. (Considering our friends’ propensity for swearing and Sprout’s mimicry, that probably wasn’t all bad.)
High: Being able to sleep in because I didn’t have to go to work.
Low: There was nothing bad about this at all. I did stay up too late, but that was fun in its own way.
High: We got snow a few days after Christmas! It actually accumulated on the ground and everything. Not a White Christmas, but close.
Low: It was sleeting that morning, making it way too slushy to play in. We also forgot that Sprout’s snow boots from last winter don’t fit anymore and there was no way he could go tromp around in the snow in sneakers.
High: Seeing a weirdly elaborate holiday light display put on by a local business. My father-in-law said it attracts so much attention that there have been a number of accidents from people slowing down too much or pulling onto the shoulder. To avoid that fate, we pulled into their driveway and walked around. Seriously, this thing rivals ZooLights for the sheer amount of lights. This photo is just a fraction of the display.
Low: Man, it was really cold out.
I hope you and your families had a great holiday, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or just New Years Day!
Besides the fact that it’s the end of the year, this is my 200th post! So it’s a good time to look backwards.
This was a challenging year for me. I dealt with some difficult personal issues that I didn’t write about yet, but plan to in the New Year. There was also a lot of national tragedies, including those dealing with police racism, gun violence, and climate change. Plus, it’s just exhausting raising a two-year-old.
My favorite posts reflect these frustrations, especially reflections on how social justice issues intersect with being a parent. I also commented on less serious social issues, including Santa Claus and Halloween stories.
Here are some of my favorite philosophical posts this year:
At the same time, Sprout was old enough for us to take on a number of adventures that we weren’t able to previously, including concerts, camping, and Sesame Place. We found a lot of joy in the small moments in life together. Here are some of my favorite family field trips this year:
On the other hand, my most popular posts covered some quirky pop culture subjects, including my favorite band, the political implications of children’s literature, and kiddie music.
I hope that you enjoyed reading my posts this year! I look forward to writing about our family’s adventures, challenges and reflections in the New Year.
There’s just something about little kids and trains. When you put Santa in the mix, it’s a guarantee for Christmas magic. So it was a lovely gift for our in-laws to give Sprout a ride on the Polar Express run by the Saratoga and North Creek Railway as his big Christmas present.
The Polar Express is an actual train ride modeled on the famous book that was made into a movie. Both are about a little boy waiting on Christmas Eve to hear Santa’s sleigh despite his friend telling him it isn’t real. A magical train picks him up, along with a number of other children, and brings them to the North Pole. When the boy is picked to receive the first gift of Christmas, he requests a bell off of Santa’s sleigh. On Christmas morning, he discovers it makes beautiful music, but his parents think it’s broken. As time goes on, his friends and sister lose the ability to hear it, but his belief in the magic of Christmas allows him to always hear it.
While I had read the book ages ago, my father-in-law adores the movie. With a local train company offering a “Polar Express” package, he wanted to bring Sprout on the real-life version.
We boarded the train at night in our pajamas, just like the children in the story. I chose pajama pants and a sweater, but my in-laws decided to go all-out in full-body one-piece fleece jammies. Instead of the train picking us up at our house, we had to drive out to the station, pay $5 for parking, and trudge through the parking lot in the rain.
Not the most magical, but they did a lovely job once you actually got in the station. A huge Christmas tree took up most of the entranceway, flanked by a Polar Express themed gift shop and murals.
The train further built upon the plot and themes of the story, decorated in its holiday best. Pine garland wrapped around the overhead luggage storage, bright presents stored there instead of suitcases. Once the train started, “chefs” and waitstaff pranced down the aisles, skipping and kicking up their feet. As they didn’t do anything “waiterly” except pass out styrofoam cups of hot chocolate and sugar cookies, their main job was to be hilariously enthusiastic, which they did quite well. Sprout slurped down his hot chocolate, which was little kid friendly lukewarm. In addition to distributing goodies – just like in the book – the waitstaff also sang Christmas carols and showed children the pages of the book as the narration played over the loudspeaker. The conductor even made his rounds and stamped our “golden ticket.”
After a very slow 30 minute ride, the train arrived at the North Pole itself. I’m not sure if it was on purpose or coincidental, but the cell service was so poor that there was no way to figure out its location. It did preserve the magic a bit! As we approached, we gazed out the window at a “village” bright with multi-colored lights staffed by “elves” dressed in red and green. The combination of the dark and the train slowing down created the illusion of it seeming quite large. As we approached, Sprout stared out the window, transfixed by the fantastical sight.
Unlike in the book, no one got out of the train. Considering it took 20 minutes to get everyone on the train in the first place and the weather was crummy, it was very much for the best.
Instead, the elves and Santa came to us! They boarded the train, elves in the lead. Although I asked the elves to take a photo with Sprout, I didn’t expect one of them to pick him up. Considering his earlier skepticism about sitting on Santa’s lap, I winced, but he didn’t cry. But in the one decent photo we have, he doesn’t look super-thrilled. Then Santa made his way down the train car, stopping at each family to take photos and bestow a single (not real) silver bell to each child. As he entered, Sprout cried, “Santa!” While he was excited to get the bell, there was also no way in heck he was allowing Santa to pick him up.
The only critique I have of the trip was the presence of one character who isn’t even in the book. As the book is just over 30 pages, they obviously had to add quite a bit to the movie to pad it out to a reasonable length. One of those additions was a hobo, who in the “real life” version yelled a lot and simply didn’t make a lot of sense. He was vaguely scary, confusing if you hadn’t seen the movie, and generally didn’t fit in with the whole aesthetic.
Overall, the Saratoga and North Creek’s Polar Express was a lovely concept come to life. The full-sized train was a delight and was the first time Sprout had been on a non-subway train. I can’t say it will be a holiday tradition – this may be the last Christmas for us in upstate New York – but I can see why it could become one for many families.
My son’s eyes and mouth went wide when he spotted the blue tree. Festooned in lights, it was far from anything natural, but it was sure pretty. This past Sunday, we attended ZooLights, an annual month-long event at the National Zoo that turns it into a winter wonderland.
Trudging up the big hill to the Zoo from the Metro station, I yelled, “The lights! We’re almost there!” We were greeted with a wall of sparkling blue, transforming into a melange of additional colors as we got closer. A sign proclaiming ZooLights featured a red panda wagging its tail, a likeness of the naughty animal that escaped the Zoo last year.
While most of the real animals were sleeping, a whole menagerie awaited us in lights. Hummingbirds flapped their wings, snakes swayed, lizards smacked flies with their tongues and an eagle joined its mate in a high-up nest. My favorites were the surreal ocean animals and the quirky naked mole rats. Sprout seemed to like the anteater slurping up ants as they came out of their hill, although he shied away from the snake.
We did see one animal, although it was sleeping. We received a stuffed bison from my uncle for Christmas, so I wanted to show Sprout a real one. Unfortunately, as Sprout said, he was “a little scared” by its size. While he had nothing to be afraid of at the zoo, that will serve him well if he ever visits out West at least.
But Sprout’s favorite part wasn’t even inside anyway – it was the model train display inside the main visitor’s center. Thomas and Friends, along with a Lego train, chugged by zoo animals, miniature town halls, storefronts, fishermen crabbing, and even chefs breaking down the seafood on the beach. Sprout could have stood there all night if we’d let him. Judging by the crowd of kids against the fence separating them from the trains, he wasn’t the only one.
The Visitor’s Center wasn’t the only busy place – the whole zoo was pretty full. While the event is normally very popular, the 60-plus degree weather really drew out the crowds. I’d imagine there were long lines to get food or go on the rides (like carousel or slide), but it was fine if you just wanted to see the lights. We only noticed it when there was a bottleneck.
We ended up seeing a little less and leaving a little earlier than expected because Sprout was falling asleep in his stroller. While he usually likes to get out and walk around a bit, he just responded with a sigh and “no” whenever we asked. His eyes were fluttering when we got back to the Visitor’s Center, where we planned to change him into pajamas in the hope he’d sleep on the train ride home. Of course, that was invigorating and he didn’t come even close to falling asleep until we put him in his crib.
However, his newfound energy did come in handy when he and Chris caught sight of “Panda Claus,” a person in a panda bear outfit with a Santa hat. Sprout thought high-fiving the panda was just fantastic and mentioned it several times on the way home. I suspect he was a bit disappointed when I showed him the actual, cute but kind of boring pandas on the Zoo’s PandaCam yesterday morning.
Besides the lights themselves, one of the things I like best about ZooLights is the price -free! It’s easier on my wallet, which is nice, but it also opens it up to a lot of families who might not be able to participate. A lot of Christmas activities are astoundingly expensive – looking at you, Ice at the National Harbor – so it’s great that this is open to everyone.
While we don’t have too many Christmas traditions yet, visiting the ZooLights is very likely to become one of them. In fact, we’ve already promised Sprout that we’ll be back again next year.
While bringing a toddler to Target while you’re heavily pregnant can be an adventure in and of itself, our family longed to find something a little more travel-oriented. Simultaneously, we wanted to avoid a giant influx of toys at Christmas. To us, spending money to make memories via experiences is more valuable than a huge pile under the tree. (Even if my husband does love the visuals of that huge pile.)
But where could we go in the beginning of winter that was kid-friendly, relatively near Washington D.C., and not staggeringly expensive?