Wine tasting and baby parties

Tough to believe but I find myself in week 4 of my A-100 training. Last week we were treated to a couple of days of somewhat different training, which was meant to teach us teambuilding and leadership. The teaching was certainly solidified by few nights of cheap beer, horrible wine and some karaoke of disturbing quality. As if we did not have enough, on Sunday I lead a team of 20 fearless comrades to a day of wine-tasting in Northern Virginia. We started at the Barrel Oak Winery where someone had the brilliant idea to taste all the wines offered there, which sounded like a solid idea until I realized that meant 11 wines. So, we tasted and tasted and tasted until they all started tasting great. Roughly an hour later, a group of wobbly but rather excited FSOs got back on the bus to Pearmund Cellars. 20 mins of careening past green hills and some rather unimpressed cows and we got to the cute little winery. Common sense suggested that we stop for lunch there but not before we were treated to a solid tasting of no one remembers how many wines in their barrel room. We finally sat down to lunch and several bottles of wine later realized that we don't have enough time or courage to go to another one. So we went home. To finish the day, the Diplomat and I, along with Son, drove to Fairfax (boy, that is far!) for a small Good-bye get together for our friends, where Son and the rest of the kids at the party delightedly played in the rather fabulous mud hole in the backyard. Nothing attracts a well-dressed toddler like a nice, solid mud hole.

On Saturday, I decided to devote myself to my poor Son and spent the day driving him from one playdate to another. It did start a tad inauspicious. We were going to a birthday party to one of his girlfriends and like the good planner I am, I had planned to stop at a cute little store called Giggle to get a gift before the party, which was starting at 10am. True to form, Son effortlessly threw a magnificent tantrum, immediately peed in his pants (which was unfortunate because I has naturally dressed him in his best cute outfit) and yelled to no one in particular that he doesn't want to go anywhere. 25 mins later, subdued and in his second best outfit, I dragged the sullen child to the car, promising (although it did sound more like threatening him) him that he will have a great time. Driving out of the garage, I realized that it was pouring buckets. Since we were already running about 30 mins late, my GPS decided to take us for a scenic ride through Georgetown and chirpily added what appeared like another 20 mins to the ride. Just for fun, I could not find parking in front of Giggle and had to park 3 blocks away and then run with the disgruntled child through the soaked streets to the store. Once inside, I found what I wanted right away which did not please one bit the rather peaceful and somewhat phlegmatic sales clerk, who wanted to show me all the wonders of his store one by one. I made the tactical mistake of asking whether he knew the Play Museum (the birthday location), and his face lit with quiet, inside light and he spent 10 mins on his computer finding it on Google Earth for me. It was 5 mins away. Realizing that by now we were roughly an hour late, I did consider going outside and rolling in the puddles while screaming in frustration. Instead, I took the soaked Son and ran back to the car. We arrived at the Museum leaving streams of water behind us. His outfit was further ruined by the fact that I decided to take off his dainty shoes and socks to prevent him from catching a vicious cold. Turned out that we had arrived in time for cupcake decoration, which delighted me immensely. The children were given all kinds of fun accoutrements to put on top of the cupcakes and Son spent 10 happy minutes putting blue sprinkles on his cake one by one. He then ate his creation by lowering his head towards it while keeping his hands clean behind his back. It was awkward, and his face was barely seen from the frosting, but boy, his hands were pristine! All in all, he had a fabulous time and I highly recommend the Play Museum in Bethesda. It is truly heaven for kids.

Afterwards, we went back home and he took a hefty nap of 3 hours. Upon awaking, we immediately left to visit his great pal E and his parents M&M, where we stayed till it was way past bedtime. Both mama and Son had a fabulous time.

At home, the Diplomat spent the entire day staring glumly at his newly acquired walking air cast. Turns out, he has 2 shin splints and no, I don't know what that means--go Google it. All I know is there won't be much tennis in this house any time soon. Aw, shucks!