Continuing on recaps from our Spring Break trip to Berkeley and San Francisco….
One of our other goals for visiting the Bay Area was to visit our friend R who lived in San Francisco. He used to live in DC, but moved to San Francisco five years ago or so. Even though R doesn’t have kids, he’s always really liked hanging out with ours and whenever we see him, he always suggests family friendly excursions, which I appreciate. This times, he suggested that we visit the California Academy of Sciences, an aquarium, planetarium, and natural history museum all rolled into one. We took the BART and then the bus from Berkeley there and met our friend outside the museum. There was so much to see there, but here are some highlights –
Stingray tank:
There was a great outdoor space where on one end there was a huge water table set up and a station with lots of corks and sticks and you could experiment and build a boat/raft to send down the waterways of the water table. On the other end was a play area with huge insects and sticks and structures to climb. We liked this part of the museum so much we came here twice!
There was a whole exhibit about colour in nature and all the ways that animals and plants use colour. It reminded me of the rainbow game I play with the kids, and would surely have been cheating to play it in the exhibit. I particularly liked this display on beetles, and this other case on sea life. What a beautifully vibrant colour!
Lunch – probably the best meal I’ve had in a museum – roasted brussel sprouts and tortilla soup:
The Rainforest Exhibit, steamy and warm and full of lush greenery, butterflies, and birds:
Then we wandered down into the Aquarium where there were Jellyfish –
Sea horses – so cool because I had never seen a seahorse before:
And I did play the rainbow game with the kids while at the aquarium:
That evening we headed back to Berkeley for dinner, while the Husband stayed in San Francisco to go to dinner with his friend. My brother’s family, my parents, and the kids and I ended up at this very tasty Thai restaurant called The Funky Elephant. The restaurant was teeny tiny and we ended up sitting outside, even thought the evening had gotten chilly. The restaurant rolled out some heat lamps for us, whic helped a little. The food was unlike any other Thai restaurant we’d ever been to – spicy and flavorful and not too sweet. We ordered lots of food to share and I particularly liked the crispy rice salad with tofu and the Fried Brussel sprouts. (Yes! I had fried brussel sprouts TWICE in one day! That was exciting.) And for dessert we all shared a mango sticky rice, which is one of my favorite deserts ever. Highly recommend this place if you are ever in Berkeley.
95% of the time, when I see mango and sticky rice on a menu, I will order it.
Incidentally, the Husband texted while I was at dinner and said that his friend had an extra ticket to the Bruce Springsteen concert and would it be okay if he went? Of course I said yes! I myself have never been to any kind of rock concert – and honestly, I don’t know if it’s my thing what with the noise and crowds – but I was super excited that he got a chance to go.
The next day was Friday, and my brother took the day off to hang out with us. We had planned to go hiking, but it turned out to be a rainy rainy day, so he suggested that we go to the rock climbing gym instead. Going to a climbing gym as a family had long been on my “Family Fun Wish List”, so I was excited to go. The Husband did not go with us – he wasn’t interested in climbing and wanted to have a day to himself instead. He told me afterwards that he had gone to Telegraph Road, which is one of the major streets in Berkeley, and had just walked around. I had told him that he should check out Amoeba Records. Twenty years ago, I lived in Berkeley while working one of my first stage management gigs at an outdoor Shakespeare company in Marin County. On my days off, I would spend a lot of time at Amoeba Records and also Rasputin Records. Anyhow, the Husband found the two music stores and we had this text exchange:
It’s funny in our age of streaming media to think the huge percentage of my paycheck that I poured into record stores, only to now not really have any convenient way to play those CDs.
Meanwhile, back to the climbing gym … My brother is super active and outdoorsy- he is the guy that goes on five day back country camping trips, and goes to the climbing gym at least twice a week. He had child sized climbing belts and shoes for the two little kids to wear- gear that used to belong to my niece but she had outgrown. He had actually passed the climbing gear along to his neighbor’s kids, so he called them to see if we could borrow it back. The climbing gym, Pacific Pipe in Oakland, was a huge facility. I think it’s one of the biggest in the area, and also one of the oldest. We bought day passes and rented shoes for the 12 year old and me.
We started out with some bouldering:
Then we moved on to top roping – my brother belayed. This gym had a space dedicated for kids to top rope, but it was under construction – I think they were changing up the routes – so the kids just climbed on the easier grown up walls. I was really impressed by how well the kids did and how high they went, and how even though there were many handholds, they tried really hard to follow the colour of each route, even though it wasn’t always easy. I didn’t feel like renting a climbing belt, so I just stuck to bouldering myself. It is SUCH a workout.
For lunch we went to Ikea then the kids wanted to climb some more, so we went back to the gym for another hour or so.
Around 3pm, we headed home. The two little kids and I walked down with my sister in law to pick up my niece from school.
Since it was a Friday in Lent, we wanted some tasty vegetarian food for dinner, so my brother took us to Vik’s Chaat. I had come here years ago, when it was just a restaurant in a big warehouse. Now it also has an Indian grocery story attached, which was very exciting to me and I made a note to check it out later.
We ordered lassis; the kids had mango, and I had a rose lassi. I don’t often see rose lassis on a menu, but it is one of my favorite lassi flavors so I always order it when I see it.
Dinner itself was very tasty, but somewhat of an ordeal. Vik’s is not like Indian restaurants at home where you order a bunch of dishes – basically everything come in a Thali so you get whatever your order – saag panner, dosa, samosa, along with chutney, dal, and rice. The idea being that your order is your meal. Well one child, likes to eat family style and try a bunch of different things, and also wasn’t familiar with the menu, and thought the cheese dosa would have paneer in it, but it just had American Cheese. And said child was probably hangry and tired and then had a meltdown in the restaurant and had to be taken aside to calm down. The whole thing made me realize how, even in America there are places that can be bewilderingly different from what we are used to in our own city.
After dinner, I checked out the grocery store. Because I didn’t want to bring a lot of things home with us in our suitcases, I exerted great restraint and did not buy all the dals and spices and snacks that were there. I did, however buy a 16 oz container of cardamom pods and 16 oz cloves and a bag of Assam tea because it all was about 1/2 the price as what I usually get at home, and I can’t usually find Assam tea at home. It is soon going to be iced chai season and I am really excited.
After that we headed home, the kids went to bed, I chatted a little with my brother and sister-in-law before going back to our apartment and turning in for the night. We had two more days left in our trip and they would be filled with planned and unplanned adventures.
I don’t often have Spring Break off, so when I realized that I did, we decided to take a family trip. We chose to go to Berkeley for Spring Break this year because my brother lives there and while he and his family have come to visit us several times, we hadn’t been to visit him since 2017. Like Amsterdam last year, it was a family based destination, but we took advantage of being in a big city to have some fun adventures.
The flight over went quite smoothly. It was a 6:30am flight, and we left home at 4:05 am. It was hard for me to get up that early because I am a “night before” packer so I didn’t go to sleep til about 2:30am. Plus I had to get tax documents out to our tax person, and send the soccer snack sign ups before we left, so I had a few things to do the night before. My own fault for being such a procrastinator. We drove to the airport and parked at a hotel via Spot Hero. Spot Hero is a third party site that let you book parking spots at hotels near the airport, then you can just take the airport shuttle to the airport. It’s much cheaper than airport parking, and gives us the flexibility to drive ourselves to the airport. Even with leaving 15 minutes later than we wanted, having to go back to get a forgotten bag, and missing a few turns, we parked and still got to the airport at 5:15am. Good for us!!
Early morning airport. Grateful that the kids are of an age to carry/wheel their own luggage.
We flew Southwest and somehow the kids got put in a different boarding group from the adults. We were a little nervous about this, but it had been so long since we last flew that I had forgotten about Family Boarding and that we could actually board together between Group A and Group B since we had kids. Hooray! We only have two more years of Family Boarding left, and that makes me a little sad.
I sat with the two little kids and the Husband sat with the 12 year old. We had forgotten to pack earphones for the two little kids, so they shared my spare pair of earbuds. More to the point- the 7 year old forgot to bring his earphones home from school and the 4 year old was playing with her earphones the night before, and didn’t put them back in her backpack. Luckily, the Husband had an extra set of earphones in his bag, so each kid took one earbud, which was a little awkward, but they seemed fine with it and was actually kind of sweet. The kids watched movies and drank apple juice on the flights and were generally pretty chill. There was a layover in Kansas City where we found a playspace, a real bookstore (not just a magazine kiosk with best-sellers) and we ate BBQ, which might have been a little heavy for 8am, but we we were in Kansas City, so why not?
Ready for the flight. Side note: the 7 year old made that sleep mask in sewing class!Kansas City Playspace
We arrived in Oakland at 12:30pm and took the BART to my brother’s. I had pre-loaded the transit card onto my phone before my trip and it proved really convenient to be able to just tap my phone to ride transit. It did take me a couple days to find the right angle to tap to consistently get my phone to read, but once I figured it out it worked really well – I could add money while on the go and I could see how much money I was using. I had been hesitant to put payment methods on my phone up til now, but with the Clipper Card on the phone you save the $3 card fee and I could do it before I got to Oakland, so it seemed practical. I’m a little slow to technology, but having the card on my phone wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be and I think I’ll have to do the same with my DC Metro card. Maybe.
My sister-in-law met us at the BART station in Berkeley with the car so the Husband drove the luggage and the 7 year old to their house while she and I and the 12 year old and 4 year old walked – it was just a 15 minute walk to her house and the weather was beautiful. My brother has just finished a huge home renovation; they literally took down everything except one wall and one floor. Apparently they had to leave one wall and floor intact or else the project would be a “new build” and there are more stringent regulations for that. Their “new” house is gorgeous, fill of light and clean lines and cool things like heated bathroom floors and a lanai. They also converted the garage into a one bedroom apartment. They are eventually going to rent out that apartment, but it is currently empty and that’s where we stayed. It was really convenient because we had the place to ourselves to spread out and sleep, and just popped next door to their place for meals and hanging out. The two littles slept together on a futon mattress with sleeping bags. It was kind of hilarious because these were the mummy style sleeping bags and the kids loved zipping themselves in it and crawling around on the floor. We called them “blue worm” and “grey worm” throughout the visit. By the end of the week, the 7 year old could crawl into our bed while in a sleeping bag, which I think is kind of impressive.
Grey worm and blue worm!
Our first two days in Berkeley were pretty chill, family days. We picked up my niece from school on Friday then had a quiet evening at home. On the walk to my nieces’ school, I loved seeing how colourful and green all the yards were in Berkeley. It seems as if everyone is some kind of expert gardener. (Or has an expert gardener). My brother and sister-in-law also raise chickens and that was fascinating for me to see. The kids loved going to feed the chickens. It’s so interesting how much more separated garbage is in Berkeley – they have city wide composting in addition to recycling and trash pick up, so that the landfill trash is actually the smallest container. And on top of that that, a large portion of their vegetable scraps is actually saved by my brother and sister-in-law and fed to the chickens. I know there is a cliche about “crunchy-granolda” Berkeley people, but when you see it in action, it does feels pretty ordinary, but also kind of like a foreign country where you don’t know all the rules; it feels like being very intentional about actions, but I felt all week like I was throwing my trash in the wrong place.
The other funny “Berkeley” thing that happened all week centers around this silly game the kids play where they punch each other when they see a Tesla. It’s like the Punch Buggy game, only with Teslas instead of VW Beetles. Well, it’s kind of a fun game at home because we don’t see a huge number of Teslas around, but we quickly realized that in Berkeley, the game is ridiculous because there are soooo many Teslas. We upped the stakes to say that you had to say the colour of the Tesla and read it’s license plate number. And then we also went back to just playing Punch Buggy because there were so few Beetles in Berkeley – I think we saw about ten during the whole week.
Saturday, the two little kids were up around 4am, their bodies not having quite adjusted to the time zone change yet. That was a little challenging, but they are pretty good about not bothering the sleeping parent unless they have to. Later that morning, two of my cousins came over in the morning, and we had a great visit, chatting over bagels and coffee/tea. In the afternoon, my parents arrived- they had driven up from Los Angeles for the week. We went to a park, and to play basketball, and checked out the learning garden at the local middle school and then walked to the library. The weather had been kind of drizzly and kind of rainy and kind of bright and sunny, and on the way home we saw a rainbow!
Sunday was our first big San Francisco adventure. We drove to Richmond, about 15 minutes from Berkeley, and took the Ferry from Richmond to San Francisco. As the Ferry crossed the San Francisco Bay, my brother pointed out all the landmarks- the Oakland skyline, the approaching San Francisco skyline, Mount Tamalpais, Angel Island, Alcatraz, and of course the Golden Gate Bridge.
Golden Gate Bridge, Marin County is on the right.
The Ferry took about 40 minutes (and $4.00, which I consider a great deal!) and dropped us off right in front of the Ferry Building. From there we walked ten minutes to the Exploratorium, which is a huge hands on science museum. It is full of interactive exhibits where people can see science in action. Last month when I took the 7 year old to the art museum he had said, somewhat petulantly, “This is the worst museum ever! There are no screens or buttons!” Well, let me tell you, the Exploratorium more than made up for it. There were exhibits on sound and sight and perceptions, and psychological experiments, and an animation station, and also exhibits on how things worked from the atomic level to large mechanical things. I particularly liked the exhibit on dance and how it showed people (and animals) of all ages and sizes moving rhythmically even though they were never taught how to dance.
This one was about the psychology of kindness, demonstrated by whether or not people would rewind video cassettes given that no one watches them do it. . Do you remember VIDO CASSETTES???? What a blast of nostalgia.
This one was about steam.
This was a game where people had to work together to manipulate various elements.
This was in the display on reflection and visual illusions. Human Kaleidoscope.
This one was about the psychology of how what we see or think influences our actions, even if it is illogical. The water is perfectly clean. The four year old thought it was pretty cool to be able to drink from the toilet.
This San Francisco-inspired piece is made entirely of toothpicks. See if you can spot the SF landmarks? In case you can’t read the caption – it took one man 48 years to build this, and he’s still building and adding to it. This was one of my favorite displays.
Because my brother had an Exploratorium membership we got in at 10:30am, before the building opened to the general public at 12noon. This was great because while it was still pretty crowded at 10:30am, it was still pretty manageable. It was kind of overwhelming and the kids zoomed from display to display. I don’t know if they actually thought about the science behind every exhibit, but they sure had fun seeing things work. I was really fascinated by the laboratory where you could see people experimenting and coming up with new exhibits. How fun is that to make a living coming up with science experiments for a museum!
Around 12:30pm, my sister in law and my parents brought us lunch that they had picked up from various stores in the Ferry Building – empanadas, bao, dumplings, manakish. We ate at the picnic tables outside the Exploratorium then went back in for more exploration. By that time it was a complete zoo. I might have lost a child for a couple minutes. The nice thing about having an even kid to adult ratio was that each adult could be responsible for one kid – we could play man to man defense rather than zone. Even still, sometimes my kids are fast and they dart to the next flashing light and button pushing exhibit the moment I blink. Anyhow, we found him not far away, but it was kind of alarming for a while because we were in a particularly dark exhibit.
Around 2:00pm we dragged the reluctant kids out of the Exploratorium because the adults wanted to walk up to Coit Tower. Coit Tower is not as iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, but it is still a pretty visible San Francisco landmark. To get to Coit Tower we took the Filbert Steps – a 400 some odd staircase path from Embarcadero St. It was certainly a bit of a haul to climb, but as we got higher, we could see some amazing views. Also I find the whole thing fascinating because intersecting the steps are little lanes that lead to residences. I can’t imagine living in a house where the only way to get to the house are these flights of stairs – the logistics of that! Like where do they put their trash? But also because the Filbert Steps is not open to traffic, it’s actually a quiet, almost idyllic slice of San Francisco.
View from Filbert Steps. You can see the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island. The clouds in the Bay Area were amazing all week.
We eventually made it up to Coit Tower and got tickets to climb the 13 stories to the top of the tower where there is a stunning 360 degree view of the city. (Daniel Pink has a video where he says the five things to always do in a foreign city is ride public transportation, go to a grocery store, read a local newspaper, go to McDonald’s, and see the view from the highest point. Of those things, I think the view from above is my favorite. This trip, I didn’t go to McDonald’s but we did go to In-N-Out, and I picked up the UC Berkeley newspaper, so I think I did check all these boxes.)
Coit Tower seen from the base.
View from the top of Coit Tower. You can just make out the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.
The other special thing about Coit Tower is that the walls are lined with murals which were commissioned as part of FDR’s Public Works of Art Program in the 1930s. They are striking in that they depict scenes of ordinary life across a wide spectrum of experiences.
This is my favorite – it’s called Library. I love how the real window is incorporated into the picture.
After enjoying the view, we came back down, all 400 some steps back to Embarcadero street. Our ferry back to Richmond was at 4:30p, so on the way back to the pier, we stopped at the Ferry Building. There were all manner of food vendors there and the bustling activity was fun to see. The Husband got a coffee (charcoal latte, whatever that is – it certainly looked intriguing) from Red Bay Coffee, and I got aguas frescas from Cholita Linda for me and the two kids who were with us. (Again, man to man defense – my brother and sister-in-law were with the other kids). I had a strawberry lime agua frescas, the 12 year old had the lime and the 4 year old had the mango. We actually were looking for boba, but there were – surprisingly – no boba places in the Ferry Building. Nonetheless the aguas frescas were delicious. I think aside from boba tea, agua fresca is my favorite special drink.
Coit Tower from the top of the Filbert Steps.
When the Ferry came, we took the Ferry back to Richmond and headed back to my brother’s place in Berkeley. We had leftovers for dinner while the kids played on screens. We finally let the 12 year old have Roblox and she spent a lot of the trip playing that with her cousin. My mother had brought from Los Angeles zongzi (Taiwanese sticky rice, wrapped in bamboo) and tamales, both homemade – the zongzi by her friend, the tamales by a friend of a lady with whom she works. So we steamed the zonzi and tamales, cut up some vegetables to eat on the side, and called it dinner. (I will say, the carrots and baby tomatoes in Berkeley were amazing!) Zongzi are one of my favorite Taiwanese foods, but I can’t get them in Maryland so it’s always a treat to have them. After dinner, we went back to our apartment and went to bed since we were all still slightly jet-lagged. I think we were all asleep by 9:30pm, which never happens for me. But we were all in the same one bedroom apartment, with the 12 year old sleeping in the common area, so there was really no place for me to sit up with the lights on once the kids were all in bed. All in all, it was a nice first few days in the Bay Area.
I opened another show last week. Yay. The opening night show was not flawless – there was a curtain that had to be hung at intermission and we just couldn’t get it to line up as it should so we had to take it down and re-hang it three times and intermission ran long while we did this. The audience loved that, however. They came back from intermission to see us trying to fix the issue and as intermission stretched one, two, three, four.. minutes beyond expected, there was a palpable tension in the air. Every time we tried to close the curtain, I could feel the audience hold their breath, and when it didn’t work, there was a large groan of disappointment. And then when we finally got the curtain hung correctly, there was a huge burst of applause!
Prop Table ready for the start of the show! I tired something new and taped the prop list to the wall above the table. and it seemed to work well.
Tech Week: Tech week itself went fairly smoothly. I was not great about going to bed right as soon as I got home because I found that when I got home I still was faced with a stack of dirty dishes and enticing books and inviting snacks. On the other hand, I did get to sleep in (by which I mean 8:30am) in the morning since I didn’t have to be up with the kids, so sleep-wise things weren’t so bad.
Tech steps average: 14, 490 steps/ day.
Annapolis: A good friend of mine was passing through town on the Monday Juneteenth holiday so I picked her up from the train station and we decided to spend the day exploring Annapolis. I had only been to Annapolis once or twice for the boat show, and it had been many many years, so I was happy for the opportunity to visit again. One of hiking books featured a walk around historic Annapolis, so we decided to do that. Our trip to Annapolis started off with the elation of free parking. I completely understand how parking is dicatated by so much more than my need for a place to put my car, but it still irks me to have to pay for it. But since we only had a couple hours in Annapolis, I decided to put the car in a garage and just pay for parking. And then on the way to pay, I saw this sign:
Scoring free parking always makes me feel like that day is going well. (And I know I’m probably upsetting some balance of economics and city planning, but…) First stop – we had lunch and then visited a hat store.
I had lost my sunhat last year and was looking for a new one. I particularly wanted one with a large brim and which I could pack. This hat store had some veeerry fancy hats- there was a cream and navy striped hat that I loved, but for the price, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a hat that would show dirt and couldn’t be tossed in the washing machine. I decided upon a red hat- my favorite colour!
My new red hat!
We then took this walking tour from my hiking book – Best Day Hikes Near Washington, DC. Now a city stroll isn’t what I would typically categorize as a hike, but why not? The walking tour first took us by the Maryland State House – the oldest state house still in use in the U.S. In front of the State House was a statue of Thurgood Marshall, whom I didn’t realize was from Maryland. It was such an odd juxtaposition to see the construction cranes against the colonial architecture of the State House. I didn’t grow up in Maryland and it struck me that my kids will probably learn about Maryland state history and know more about this state than I do. I hear that a visit to the State House is something almost every middle schooler will do.
Thurgood Marshall statue. Also – that dome on top of the state house is the oldest wooden dome in the country.
The walking tour next took us through St. Johns University where we discovered a small art museum, the Mitchell Art Museum. The current exhibition was of African American art from the collection of Alitash Kebede, an art collector based in Los Angeles. It was a varied and thoughtful exhibit and one of the highlights of our walk. How wonderfully serendipitous to just stumble across this museum, and it also made for a nice break from the heat.
We continued on and saw historic row houses:
I can’t resist a good boot scraper. I love such period details that survive through the years:
More 18th century buildings:
Mural:
The walking tour ended up at City Dock where we could see boats sailing to and fro across the Chesapeake Bay. We ended up at a coffeeshop on the dock, Bitty and Beau’s, which was recommended by a friend. I don’t drink coffee, but I’m always happy to pick up beans for the Husband:
Each bag of coffee came with a postcard with a handwritten note on the back. Bitty and Beau’s was started by a couple who wanted to provide employment opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
And then we stopped for ice cream, where I saw this sign:
Well, can’t argue with that.
And then it was time to take my friend to meet up with her family and I headed home. All in all, a very nice day trip. We didn’t even get to the Naval Academy or the Maritime Museum, but I’m looking forward to being back.
The solo week. While the Husband and children were off in Chicago, I was at home trying to wrap my head around how different (yet in certain parts the same) life was like without the Husband or kids.
There were moments like me eating watermelon at 11pm at night because I cut up too much and now the tupperware lid won’t close and now I remember why we never buy watermelon – because it is such a hassle to put into the fridge. A whole watermelon is for sure not a single person endeavor.
There was laying my yoga mat out at the beginning of the week, and leaving it out all week.
There was getting to read while eating, even though it’s something I tell the kids not to do. (I’m re-thinking this now… maybe we can have books at the table for weekend lunches? Reading while eating feels like such an indulgent action, in that it revels in the solitary and almost meditative aspect of a meal rather than the social.)
Lunch on my own: pan fried tempeh, roasted zucchini with chimichurri on a bagel, salted mango salad and a Bronte biography.
There was cleaning out the fridge and reclaiming a dishwasher full of Tupperware from whatever horrific fuzzy former food matter I had stuffed in there an unspeakable number of months ago. I am a leftover food optimist. It doesn’t always work out well.
There was me spooking myself out being all alone at home and not wanting to go into the basement at night. One night I got home from work and I thought I’d just throw in a load of laundry, but then paused at the top of the stairs to the basement, hyper-aware of all the creaks and groans of a house at midnight. Or maybe, my over active imagination said, the creaks and groans of a serial killer hiding among the overflow Tupperwarebin. And then I decided to just leave the laundry for the next morning. (Fun fact -when I was growing up, I was convinced that D.B. Cooper – you know that guy who jumped from a plane somewhere over the Rockies in the 70s with a butt load of money and was never seen again – was living in our basement and refused to go down there by myself at night. Of course I never told my parents that was why. I just made up excuses. But then I told my brother and he was merciless and teased me about it all. the. time. Older brother. They can really suck.)
There was going through all the kids’ drawers and organizing their clothes – taming the unorganized explosion of clothes, the lack of specificity in storage. Hooray – now there is a place of underwear, a place for t-shirts, a place for shorts, etc. I’m hopeful that the clothes stay organized, but I don’t know that I’m holding out much hope. The children don’t seem to value having each of their drawers/bins designated for specific clothing types the way that I do. Will this appreciation for sartorial organization come with age?
There was further development in kids’ clothing – I went through all the clothes piled in the guest room and packed clothes away in labelled bins for future use. Even though I’m normally a clothes hoarder, this time I was pretty ruthless about not keeping clothes that I had no interest in putting on my kids. The cute button down shirts. The corduroy pants with buttons and zippers. The pants with drawstrings to keep them up. Love the idea, can’t imagine wanting to spend the time putting my kids in them. Or my kids having the ability to hold their pee while they try to get those pants off. Anything slightly stained, I threw out. This was a big step for my “Oh but they could use them for play clothes” inner voice. “Or for painting their bedroom.” I firmly told that inner voice that 1) all clothes are play clothes, no need to keep dingy and stained clothes just for this, and 2) Seriously? In what world are my kids ever going to be painting their bedroom. Disappointingly, the house does not look more uncluttered for all my work culling a decade of kids’ clothes. I think because these clothes are usually stuffed in closets or behind closed doors, I wouldn’t have seem them anyway and thus did not clock the clothes as a mess. The mess at times is more an emotional burden than a spatial one. Though in the case of the guest room, it certainly is the latter. The clothes are organized, but my house is nowhere near being closer to whatever Pinterest/shelter magazine/influencer minimalism that seems the ideal.
Seven bins of clothes ready to go into the attic until the next child needs them.
There was the night where at 9pm I decided I wanted to bake, so I stayed up and made soy sauce brownies and black sesame banana bread from Hetty McKinnon’s cookbook To Asia With Love.
midnight black sesame banana bread.
There was taking myself to a community festival – the One Journey Festival that celebrated refugees and their stories and contributions. I bought Turkish towels from a vendor, enjoyed African food from a food truck, and sat and listened to musicians from Africa and Afghanistan perform. The Festival was on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. I think I visited the grounds once before when I first came to DC almost twenty years ago. Between musical acts, I strolled the gardens and there was a wooded trail nearby, though it was a little too buggy for me to to linger.
It was interesting going to a festival on my own – this is the kind of thing that I usually bring the kids to, and I would encourage them to take part in the community art project and to dance to the live band. I really shouldn’t use my kids as a reason to take part in these things, yet somehow, going on my own, I felt a little self conscious about participating. It was a silly hang up, really. Art and dancing – expressions of creativity and exuberance – aren’t just for children. I felt a little jealous of the adults that I saw who participated whole-heartedly and didn’t just sit and watch.
Cathedral gardens
All in all, a full week. Curiously, I didn’t feel like I had a lot more free time than when the kids were home. Freedom, yes, but not time. Half way through the week, I realized that I so far had done a load of laundry every. single. day. The kids were gone but I was still doing daily laundry. And it was their laundry. What the what?!? The house still had to be picked up, I still had to make and eat food, I still had to go to work.
And then I realized… when the Husband is home, I have someone who splits the housework – actually someone who probably in fairness does more of the housework than I do. I think it’s a testament to how much he does that when he was gone, I didn’t feel like I gained that much time. I did sleep more – like 6-7 hours rather than 5 hours. I could do 30 mins of yoga in the morning rather than 10- which is fine; any yoga practice longer than that and I get restless. And I did read more. The mornings did feel more luxurious without a bus to catch or three lunches to pack.
But the bonus projects I took on that took more time- going through the kids’ clothes in the guest room, the One Journey festival, dinner with a friend, baking- these are things I could have done, or would have done and often do, with the kids. And the things I didn’t get done – mostly life admin things, but also blogging – these things are things I struggled to fit in regardless. Which all in all made me think that really my struggle with these tasks is not about time but about managing priorities and life inertia. Not to say one thing is more important than the other – well, maybe paying the bills is more important than finishing that book – but rather the tasks that require me to sit down at a computer and just crank things out are less appealing when I have a juicy novel in front of me. I do like writing, but actually turning on the computer always seems to take so much more effort to me than just picking up my book (or, let’s be honest, scrolling.) Knocking out a to do list requires more motivation than just kid free time I’m discovering.
I think the other place where I found space during my solo week was mentally. I didn’t quite realize how much mental space living with other people takes until I didn’t have to constantly be thinking about what the other people in my life needed on an every day level. I didn’t have to do the calculus of “do the dishes now” vs. “do the dishes later” because no one was coming to use the kitchen after me so I could just “do the dishes later” without even thinking about it. I didn’t have to think, “What will they want to eat?” or “Is someone going to be annoyed if I leave this tote bag there?” or “Do I need to intervene?” or “Do I have to pick them up or can someone else?” or “Is it worth the temper tantrum to insist on that?” or “Should I read my book or read to my kid?” When the only one who cares about what I do is myself, it feels like decisions are easier.
Mini Rant of the Week: Shorts for kids. I had to grab the 11 year old some shorts before she left on this trip. So I went to the Mall, thinking I’d just stop by JC Penny and grab some shorts. I will say that had some really great leggings marked down to $5, so I grabbed a pair of those. But the shorts.. man. Everything I could find in the Girls’ section was itty bitty short. Like in danger of flashing underwear short. “Okay,” I thought, “I’ll just buy her shorts from the Boys’ Department.” Which I do often because sometimes the boys’ stuff is sturdier and the pockets are just better. But everything in the boys’ section was these polyester athletic shorts with like a 10″ inseam. Is there no such thing as a nice 5″ inseam anymore? Or maybe this is a JCP specific issue? I didn’t really have time to go to all the stores, so I bought the boys athletic shorts, a pair of leggings and a couple shorts from the ladies section for the 11 year old to try. But the lack of what I would deem is a regular inseam length for shorts… baffles me.
(Also – when do I stop shopping in the girls’ section. What is after that and before Women’s? I do shop in the women’s for the 11 year old once in a while- the XS fits her okay.)
(Also – I bought new water bottles and socks for the kids in anticipation of summer camp because the current supply of both water bottles and socks, is mismatched and grimy. And wow… do the kids never stop needing things to be replaced/replenishes/restocked? Always something.)
Thing of Beauty of the Week: I packed both the little kids in one suitcase. Since we weren’t sure if there would be laundry, I packed seven outfits for each kid. The Husband must have been impressed because he sent me a picture of the suitcase upon arrival:
Yes, I’m a “roller” not a “folder”.
Listening to: The 2022 podcast Sold A Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong, details the story of reading instruction in the U.S. and how one of the predominant methods currently being used is scientifically proven to be flawed yet still is implemented. I learned to read at an early age and took for granted the ability to look at letters on a page and sound them out. The 11 year old was not an early reader, and actually a little behind her peers. I remember when she was in kindergarten thinking, “Wow there are certainly a lot of strategies being taught on how to figure out what a word is.” But it turns out, according to Sold a Story, that a lot of these strategies, mostly revolving around context clues, don’t actually teach a kid to read. In fact, they are what kids rely on when they can’t read. Listening to this podcast was kind of eye-opening to me – it really made the things that bothered me about the 11 year old’s reading journey make sense. The six year old more or less is figuring out on his own how to read, and I am pretty sure it isn’t through context clues. I’m really interested to see how the baby learns, and after listening to this podcast, I feel like I know how I would prefer to support her. This podcast was fascinating.
Also this On Being episode with Vivek Murthy about the need for love and compassion and connection in our world. So many wise thoughts. My favorite quote: “When we come into this world — as I see with my own kids, and many of you may have seen with other young people in your lives — we are content. My kids don’t care whether we have a big house or a small house. They don’t care about how fancy the clothes are that they wear or not. They care about finding moments of joy. They care about the relationships they have with the people around them.” Another thing that stuck with me was how Murthy talks about the pandemic of loneliness – something that was indeed magnified by the pandemic. He offers four suggestions on how individuals can create a world with more connection: 1) spend 15 minutes a day connecting with someone you care about (who doesn’t live with you.) 2) give people your full attention when talking to each other. 3) find opportunities for service as this helps connect you with other people but also with your own values. 4) counterintuitively, find time for solitude because in solitude you can rediscover yourself, and connecting with yourself is important for connecting with other people. I don’t care to put myself on the introvert/extrovert spectrum because I feel like for me, it’s not one or the other, but I do know that I get deep satisfaction from interacting with other people. I’m always hesitant to reach out to other people, but I’m always glad when I do and this podcast episode was a good reminder to reach out more.
Grateful For: – The Husband for taking the kids away. A ten hour road trip with three kids… not for the faint of heart, but he went and he made sure the kids had a great time. They went to the Aquarium, did the architectural boat tour, visited the Bean. Also, he sent me this hilarious text exchange:
“Why Thank you, Husband, for sparing me a trip to the American Girl Store!”
– The Husband’s Garden. Since the Husband wasn’t home, I mowed the lawn and watered the garden. I will fully admit that I am a spectator in the backyard – I don’t have any interest in getting my hands into gardening or landscaping or what not. My interaction with the garden is pretty much limited to cooking the vegetables that he grows. As I was watering the garden, though, I noticed how thoughtful he is about the plants, and all the little projects that he has going on in his garden. I noticed how colourful and pretty everything looked and I felt really grateful that he put in the effort to make our backyard so green. And I’m also really grateful that these little bits of dirt and growth have given him a hobby and so many hours of not thinking about the kids.
– Our dishwasher. Because when you clean out the fridge, it is a good thing to not have to wash all that science experiment encrusted Tupperware by hand.
Looking Forward To: – Camping! And Camp Food! I’ve started brainstorming what we’re going to eat on our camping trip to the Shenandoah Mountains. I’ve bought a new cooler and I’m excited to take it camping. I’ve been listening to camping podcasts to also get me excited about three nights in the woods with two little kids. – A week at home with the six year old. When I realized that this would be a performance week and I would have a lighter work schedule, I decided not to put the six year old in camp and instead he can have Camp Mom – where we go do fun things and go on playdates and spend lots of time outdoors. His sisters will be in school, so we’ll have lots of one on one time, which si something I don’t do enough of. -The Smithsonian Folklife Festival – starts this weekend. It’s always fun to go down to the Mall and see the exhibits and performances. The theme this year is the Ozarks and also the exploration of the where spirituality and creativity intersect. I used to dismiss this as one of those DC things that made the Mall a crowded madhouse and I’d avoid going, but I’ve come to see what a neat collection of experiences it is. If I ever have the summer free, I would seriously think about volunteering for the Festival.
What I Ate: Saturday: The leftover Cucumber and Black Bean Salad from last week.
Sunday: I didn’t plan my work day and meals well and as a result did not pack a dinner and was starving by the time I got home from work at 8:30pm. I ate a can of tuna over some cut up cucumbers with hot sauce. And some more leftovers. Sometimes a can of tuna is just the meal I need.
Monday: Whole Roasted Cauliflower and Mashed Beans from Hetty McKinnon’s To Asia with Love. I’ve always wanted to try a whole roasted cauliflower and being home by myself was the perfect time to do it. The family things cauliflower is bland and make faces whenever I propose it. (And then eat it anyway.) The recipe calls for mixing gochujang and yogurt and spreading that over a cauliflower and then roasting it. The roasting turns the yogurt and gochujang into an almost cheesy like spicy layer coating the cauliflower. It was definitely not bland.
Tuesday and Wednesday: Leftovers. Because when home by myself, it’s okay to eat the same thing three nights in a row. (Maybe it would be okay to do this when everyone else is home too, but I feel like it wouldn’t go over as well. We are so spoiled.)
Thursday: Happy Hour with some mom friends. We went to a favorite Mexican restaurant. I ordered the seafood soup, which I always order at the restaurant. It’s this delicious tomato broth based concoction chock full of seafood and flavour. It is delicious. I had it years ago and even though it is no longer on the menu, they will still make it if you ask. (I feel like such a braggy special snowflake for saying, “I just ask for this off menu thing and they make it.” But that’s really how it goes down.). Anyhow, when I got the bill, I realized that the seafood soup is a $38 item. Which I had never realized before because the Husband usually settles the bill when we go out. And I almost had a heart attack to realize that I’ve been eating $38 soup for years. I mean it is kind of understandable – there is half a lobster in this soup. Plus all sorts of other seafood. I told myself that I don’t drink, so ordering the seafood soup is probably an acceptable indulgence when we go out to eat.
Friday: Opening night – I didn’t really have dinner, but I did have some roast beef sliders and these really complicated looking cucumber appetizers at the opening night party.
The distinctive rooftops of Amsterdam. Not even sure where this is, but I love the variety all next to each other.
Days 2 and 3 in Amsterdam were very much family days with my Sister in law and her family, so I’m combining them into one post.
Waking up on Saturday was tough because of the time change. I think everyone slept til about 10:30am or so. Except the Husband. He likes to go find coffee in the morning, when we travel so I think he was out of the house by 8:30 or 9am. We soon discovered that Amsterdam is not a city that wakes up early and he was hard-pressed to find coffee before 9am on a weekend unless it was at a Starbucks.
For breakfast, the Husband had gone to Jumbo, the grocery store around the corner, and came back with some cold cuts and cheese and fruit, which we ate with the sourdough bread that we had bought the day before from Levain et Le Vin. The bread was sooooo good! Tangy and with a texture that was soft yet chewy. One of the cold cuts that the Husband brought back was Ossenwort, a raw sausage… kind of like a tartare. I liked it, but I think the kids were a little leery. I think just buying food from the regular grocery store is one of my favorite things to do while on vacation – I love seeing what is on the shelves and what people eat.
No kitchen at the Airbnb, but there was a kettle for hot water, which is very important. And that bread was delicious.
Breakfast: Ossenwort, cheese (not sure what kind, though I did eventually learned that belegen means aged), sourdough bread and fruit.
After breakfast and some lazing around, we set off to meet my Sister in law and her family for lunch. We decided to walk to the restaurant since it was only 15 minutes away. Halfway there, my SIL came zooming by on her bike. She had dropped her kids at the restaurant (with my brother in law) and came back to see if our kids wanted a ride. The six year old and the three year old got into her bakfiets (Eurpoean cargo bike) and she rode off them. I was a little surprised that there were no seatbelts or anything in the bakfiets – the kids just sat in the front cargo box. But that might just be my overcautious American brain.
We met up at a pancake place shaped like a carousel. Pancakes are on all the lists of Dutch foods to try- to my mind Dutch pancakes lean more toward crepes than the big fluffy American pancakes I’m used to. The kids ordered pancakes, the Husband had poffertjes (tiny pancakes) and I had a waffle. I also had mint tea, which would turn out to be one of my favorite drinks in the Netherlands- so simple, just fresh mint in hot water, served with a cookie and a bit of honey on the side.
The 3.5 year old and her pancake. Let’s be honest – she mostly just ate the whipped cream directly out of the cup.
My waffle with strawberries.
After lunch my SIL and her family headed back to their house, but I was eager to explore so we said we would walk/ take the tram to their place. It was a drizzly day, but I still liked walking and getting a sense of the city. We walked to Leidseplein, a very popular square that had these cute gecko sculptures and also a very ornate looking theatre:
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam. I love looking at theatres, even from the outside.
From Leidseplein we took the tram three stops up and got off next to the Vondelpark, and from there we walked across the park to m SIL’s place. On the way to the park, we passed this sculpture garden:
The Emmaplein. I looked it up later and these sculptures are by members of a post War Dutch sculpture collective called Group D’Adam. So cool to have a sculpture garden that one can randomly stumble upon.
Drizzly park landscapes:
Cranes in tall nests:
And then a random man with a dog offered to take our picture on this bridge. (Side note, I noticed in the park that almost all the dogs were off leash. This is certainly different from the parks around me at home. But my Brother In Law made a comment that the Dutch love to have order and rules, but they never think the rules apply to themselves – so it’s kind of ordered chaos in a way.) I thought the man with the dog was going to take our picture from one end of the bridge, but he actually went to stand somewhat precariously among the greenery of the banks of the stream down below the bridge.
not the best picture, but I will always remember the man who took it.
And of course a canal:
At my sister in law’s house, we ordered Indonesian food and the kids watched a movie. The food was … fine. I heard that Indonesian food was big in Amsterdam, because of the Dutch’s history in The East Indies. This food was a lot like Chinese food and a bit too saucy for my taste. Though the noodles were pretty good. Around 7pm, we headed back to our AirBnb where we watched some TV (I think it might have been RuPaul’s Drag Race or Friends – it seems that the grown up shows have subtitles and the kids shows were dubbed, so the kids watched a lot of Friends and reality tv while in Amsterdam. Along with some SpongeBob and The Thundermans which they didn’t mind watching in Dutch because they already had seen the episodes.) We tried to get the kids in bed around 10pm, but the kids mostly tossed and turned until finally falling asleep around midnight.
Sunday morning we woke up around 9:30am, and had breakfast – more bread, cold cuts, and fruit. Then we headed out for the day’s adventures. We stopped at a coffee shop around the corner called Uncommon. The Husband said the coffee was very good, and actually got coffee there several times during the week. I had a matcha latte, which I sipped as we went to meet our boat for our canal tour- the one that we had rescheduled from Friday when we missed it. This time, we knew where we were going, and showed up right on time to the boat.
The first thing I liked about the canal tour was that they had snacks! Windmill cookies, little sausages, cheese, crackers, Dutch licorice and of course Heineken. Apparently licorice is a huge thing in the Netherlands, coming in all sorts of flavors. The licorice on the boat was salty licorice, and I rather liked it.
I highly recommend a canal tour in Amsterdam- it gives one a view of the cities and architecture that’s different from just walking around. I chose this tour group (Captain Jack’s) because it had an open top boat; a lot of the other tours had glass covered boats and I imagine the view is not as good. Our boat captain was a retired business professor from Utrecht. He told lots of funny stories and historical tidbits. He talked a lot about how much each building cost or who had the money to buy a building- an expected perspective from a business professor.
Family portrait on the boat.
The architecture of Amsterdam is such a great way to learn about the city. We learned that one reason the houses are so narrow is that properties were taxed on their width. There are several super narrow houses in Amsterdam, including this one that we saw:
We also saw rows and rows of houseboats, which seems like it’s own fascinating subculture.
All different shapes and sizes and materials. Also interesting that some of them have top levels that come apart so they can fit under bridges.
And tug boats pulling houseboats.
I think this is actually the Houseboat Museum.
And the opera house, which is always fun for me to see.
We also floated passed the Anne Frank House. We did not visit the Anne Frank House on this trip; while I do think it’s an important museum to see, I wanted to wait until the kids could go through it with the patience and respect that the place deserves. Right now the two little are very eager to express their feeling loudly when they get bored and I didn’t think that would be appropriate or fair towards the other people who might have been at the Anne Frank House. So we will save it for next trip.
Many of the houses have distinctive features on the outside. My favorite, which I didn’t get a picture of was one house that had a statue of a stork above the door- it was (and I think still is) a midwife’s location. This one has a statue of St. George and the Dragon.
Just any old house with a knight and dragon hanging out in front… Like you do.
Another interesting aspect of the houses along the canals is some of them are leaning. They were originally built on wooden poles and over years, the poles sink, or rot, or weaken, causing one side of the house to sink. Fascinating. But also a little worrisome, I would imagine.
The boat tour took about two hours and afterwards we met up with my sister in law and her family. We picked up some sandwiches and headed to to Vondelpark for the rest of the afternoon There the kids chased pigeons (seems to be a universal pastime) and played on the playground. In addition to swings and climbing structures the park had a little wooded area where the kids could play with sticks and build wood forts. The weather was beautiful and it was nice to be outside after two days of drizzly wet weather.
Around 4pm, we headed to a bar for happy hour snacks, which also sort of passed for dinner. We had a variety of typical happy hour/bar food: French fries, cheese and meat plate, bitteballen (fried croquettes with meat filling.) After a while, my sister in law and her family headed home and we headed back to our Airbnb. It was only about 5:30p at the time, so we decided to stop for ice cream at a cute shop we had seen during our wanders. The shop had cones with various characters on them. The six year old went first and he, unsurprisingly, picked a Paw Patrol cone. The lady behind the counter started scooping ice cream.
So many choices!
All of a sudden, the lights went dim, disco lights started flashing, bubbles streamed through the air, and the Paw Patrol theme started playing. And at the end, there was a big burst of foam to cap it all off. It was an epic delightful surprise.
Of course after that display, we all had to get character cones. The 3.5 year old choose a unicorn, the 11 year old chose Darth Vadar, I chose Slimer from Ghostbusters and the Husband chose Ghostbusters too. We sat outside and enjoyed our ice cream while watching the lights and bubbles and foam display for each customer.
When we had finished our cones, we took a long meandering way home. We came across this snake-shaped play structure next to a garden and spent about half an hour playing there.
And on the way home we saw more canals, made even more beautiful in the light of the almost setting sun:
We arrived home around 6:30p, and put on the first Ice Age movie and snuggled down for a family movie night. Everyone was in bed by 9:30pm, but the six year old tossed and turned and stayed awake for another hour. Our Airbnb was one big room, so it wasn’t as if we could put the kids to bed and then stay up ourselves, so all week we actually went to bed the same time as the kids most nights. On day 3 we were still fighting jetlag, but we told the kids that even though they weren’t sleepy we were going to turn out the lights and stay in bed. And eventually they did fall asleep.
Well that was our first weekend in Amsterdam. It was a combination of family and touristy stuff, which was a nice pace for the first few days. The week to come, my sister in law’s family would be busy with school and life so we wouldn’t see them very much so I’m glad they made time for us on the weekend.
More adventures to come. Including, on Day 4… a food tour!
