Father's Day

Father's Day. Dad's day of relaxation, playing golf, and not having to worry about the kids all day. A day when your wife waits on you hand and foot or takes the kids away so you might enjoy the one day dedicated to you. Ah, fathers in the 1950's do not understand how well they had it. (I watch Mad Men. I know how it was.)

Let me tell you about the modern day Fathers Day. My Father's Day started at 0530, when I went for a 6 mile run, training for the Marine Corps Marathon. So far so good, my day started a little early, but I got my run in and came home feeling pretty good. After my run, I walked into Shelly cooking a hot breakfast.... A nice weekend treat.

After my Father's Day breakfast, we decided to visit Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Fort McHenry is an awesome place to take the kids -lots of room to run around, plenty of things to climb and explore, and a nice breeze off the water. Not to mention the history of the fort is amazing... the site of the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 where Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner.

After loading the car with a picnic lunch, frisbee, baseball and gloves, soccer ball, blanket, toys, diaper bag (with change of clothes, sunscreen, diapers, wipes, and snacks), potty seat, camera, and kids, we started our drive to Baltimore. How does an hour-and-a-quarter trip turn into a two hour trip? No, not traffic, when you have a two year old potty training. Sure enough, after thirty minutes, Kate would say she had to go potty, and we would pull over, and sit her on her potty seat, after five or ten minutes of nothing happening, we would load back up and start driving. Until another twenty to thirty minutes passed, and Kate, once again, would claim she had to go potty. We did this at least three times on our 80 mile drive, and I don't think she actually went once. She might have been distracted or realized it was a good way to get out of her car seat for a couple of minutes.

We finally made it to Fort McHenry, and after a quick lunch (and a trip to the bathroom), we did those things quintessential to a family picnic. We played catch, kicked the soccer ball, and explored. If Fort McHenry is cool for no other reason, it has trees Madison can climb. For quite sometime, Madison has been infatuated with climbing trees. I do not condemn her desire, considering my Mom often reminds me that I tried to climb every tree I saw when I was Madison's age. Unfortunately, Madison would have to be 20 feet tall to reach the first branch of the trees where we live.

We spent the most of the day at Fort McHenry, until we were hot and tired. We then drove to Fell's Point to have ice cream and visit our friends, Bess and Tim. Lesson learned from this: when the temperature is pushing 100, neither a 2 year old or 4 year old can eat their ice cream faster than it will melt. WE MADE A MESS! By the rnd of our ice cream extravaganza, the girls were covered the sticky residue from melted ice cream.

We visited with Tim and Bess and had dinner before we started our drive home. Luckily for us, there was no stopping for potty breaks, just a straight shot back... after we got lost that is :)