Chris asked me on a date Saturday evening—a Familydate! Family dates are nice because it’s less of a hassle than trying to find a babysitter AND we’re home early. Going out after putting the baby to bed is beyond me when Eloise is still up three times most nights.
So a fun family outing fit the ticket. We decided to hit up the video game exhibit at the Chrysler Museum of Art before dinner at Gordon Biersch.
Eloise loved the exhibit. She smiled at everybody, admired the art, and generally cuddled. Isaac seemed confused by the video games. Chris and I laughed about finding our old toys in a museum. Wow.
Isaac really wanted to go see the animals and toys…which weren’t there…. So instead, he got dragged around to see Grecco-Roman statues, an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, and lots of paintings. “I want to go upstaaaaaaaaairs!” he whined until we got upstairs. Then it was, “I want to go downstaaaaaaairs!” “Nah, we’re going over here,” I told him, and was rewarded with an absolute classic grimace of total boredom. It was awesome.
I had doubts about whether we could successfully go two places with the kids. We did it! The restaurant, a brewery in the Virginia Beach Town Center we’d heard was kid-friendly, was not yet crowded when we arrived at 5:30pm. It had a nice, steady volume of noise. Perfect! Isaac was uncharacteristically whiny, but I figured it was because we woke him up from his nap. Turns out he was due to barf all over his bed around 2am, between Eloise wake ups, but if course we didn’t know that yet. He’d woken up screaming from a nightmare the night before, waking up Eloise in the process, so I was surprised everything was going as well as it did.
We sampled brews, ordered dessert, got home in a timely fashion.
Chris wanted a back scratch, which I agreed to in exchange for some compliments. “You’re a great back scratcher?” Try again. “I liked walking around the museum with you and seeing what art you liked.” Now THAT is a compliment!
We both agreed an enormous painting of angels appearing to shepherds was our favorite. Except maybe for a metal piece depicting two combatants fighting over a girl, with the victor standing on the neck of the defeated and his arm around the girl. We couldn’t remember the actual name, but “Mine’s Bigger” seemed appropriate.
Conclusion: totally impressed with the (FREE) Chrysler Museum! I will go again! And if Isaac isn’t sick next time we go to dinner it will be even more of a success!
Nine Months
Yokohama’s Chinese New Year Parade
She Wears Seashells by the Seashore
Children’s Day Koinobori!