in DC

This is the Bordoni family in front of their new house. Thirty seven bathrooms was just a few too many for our needs, so we decided to pass on it. Seriously, though, we wondered if we might be headed behind bars - oh, and not in this nice house - after this photo was snapped when Liam casually tossed his stuffed animal onto The White House lawn. If you want to see law enforcement and the secret service jump into action quicker than your son can even get a word out to tell you what he did, toss a child's toy through the fence. I thought for sure we were all going to be cuffed and read our rights. While a park patrolman stood with us on the public side of the black picket fence, men in black popped out around the perimeter, hiding behind trees. One, fully vested and armed with some crazy kind of machine gun, finally made his way along the gate, secured the offending animal and passed it back to the cop, who then gave it to my son. I thought Liam and his parents might get a good talking to, but the man was just doing his job. I'm sure our mugs have been archived.


Liam's high point of the trip, aside from almost getting arrested, was having a coke. We drove 24 hours for that pleasure. My high point was seeing and staying with my grown up, married little sister for two beautiful days. Hanging out with my dad, also in town, was an added bonus.

The car ride was surprisingly easy. Liam drew, wrote in his journal and spent hours doing a math workbook. When will this bizarre happiness with "homework" turn to dread? I don't want to know. He also sported a hoodie with earbuds while watching a movie on an iPod and said, "Yo, mom, how 'bout a snack?" making me wonder where we picked him up and who this mother was. Elliott played with cars, shrieked for no good reason and sang with the Wiggles. Blessedly, they both slept, even after we poisoned them with McDonalds. Thanks to my dear sister for making us sandwiches for the ride home. Thanks to her, too, for carrying Liam around on her shoulders, giving up her bedroom (thanks, Tim, too), planning out our fabulous days of sightseeing and being the kind of aunt a six-year-old boy can appreciate. I hope they can stand more embarrassment, more noise, more whining and more silly faces. Because, like it or not, we'll be back.