White House motorcade

We headed out and to the next bus that was coming as we were

 walking out and made it to the metro stop.  It had a chick fil a at it, so I was going to get some while John added more money to our metro cards.  When I got out, I saw fire trucks and thought that I should get the boys, but of course, they were on the corner gawking and had never left the corner because 

 there were multiple trucks, fire alarms going off and the ladder up on the ladder truck.  John said that they got to see it being extended and while we’re standing there, some more cops pull up and run down into the metro stop.  Which is not something you want to see

before you go down into the bowels of the earth to get on a train in a city that is prime for attack.  But we do go down and there is nothing going on, the cops are coming out as we’re going in and we caught our metro back with no problems.  Well, there were no problems

 on the metro, but we had decided to go to the mussel bar for happy hour when we got back to the hotel, until Oscar playing chase with daddy ended up in a fall on the brick path with a split lip, scrapes up Oscar’s face and the idea that he might have knocked out a tooth from all the blood.  We got back to the room pretty quick with some whimpering and crying, but got ice on it and washed the blood away to find out that he just really took off the first layer of skin in several

    places.  I figured he was going to be black and blue the next day and we were going to have CPS called on us, but the hotel gave us some Neosporin packets to put on it and the ice made a world of difference.  It was tender this morning, but he forgot that it had even happened after several hours

 today.  We were just reminded throughout the day because of the bright red spots all over his face from every point where he made contact with the brick.  Our last free day in DC was spent with John and I making the worst travel decisions throughout the day.  It was another time besides our travel day when I thought, "I don’t think we can go on sabbatical".  Our marriage might end on sabbatical.  There were stupid things like the fact that both of us didn’t look up the opening hours of the 

 National Portrait Gallery before heading there first to find that it didn’t open for another hour.  Then we decided to go the American History museum, and had to get back in the metro to go back one stop.  We would have never have done it on our own, but with a 4 year old who is walking two miles for every one we walk, we had to.  And then John starts coming up with alternatives like staying there and eating,

   going to the White House because it’s on the same line when we’ve already swiped our cards.  I just shut my mouth after telling him it was too late and glared at anything and everything (because that’s productive).  We do go to the White House and try to see it, but you can’t get within a mile of the place.  I felt sorry for all the people that were trying to take pictures with their phones because without some serious zoom capabilities, you were going to get a shitty picture.  The water in the fountain was green for St. Patrick’s Day and John mentioned that the President must be going somewhere because the motorcade was assembled.  And sure enough, after showing Oscar the snipers on the roof and how you don’t go anywhere that it says don’t go around the President, the police start moving us away from the mile away sidewalk where you can see some of the White House.  We head out to the Smithsonian and the mall slowly, looking at souvenir trucks and noticing that the helicopter traffic has picked up a lot and there are police on every corner, so we’ll just sit and wait for Oscar to finish his snack.  And a motorcade does come out and down the road, but it’s the Irish Prime Minister who was meeting the President today.  But it was exciting to see.