Ian Does DC

Ian's busy summer continues. We returned from Long Island Monday night, he had a fever Wednesday and Thursday, so he missed his last day of daycare (we think it was a reaction to the MMR and varicella vaccines he had last week), and we drove on Friday to Washington, DC. Ian has had an active and fun time here so far. I am here for the Joint Statistical Meetings, a conference of 5,000 statisticians that I am fortunate that my company sends me to each year. Ian is accompanying me, and my parents have come from NY to care for him. There are lots of fun and mostly free things for a small boy to do in the capitol.

Yesterday while I took an all day course on modern methods in experimental design, Ian took Grandma and Grandpa to two nearby parks.

At this park he enjoyed exploring the would-be fountain (if it were filled with water, which it wasn't):



Here he's thinking that, now that he can walk, he could push his stroller back to the hotel by himself:



Later on Ian went to another park. As he is pointing out here, this park had ducks:



Here he has decided to join the brace of ducks and is hoping he will fit right in:



Today is mostly a free day for me, since the main part of the conference doesn't start in earnest until tomorrow. Since it was raining, we visited the national aquarium. It's not really the nation's best example of an aquarium (the one on the coast of NC is much better), but Ian enjoyed our visit well enough:




Next, we headed to the U.S. botanical gardens. We saw many ecosystems, but for Ian the best thing by far was the children's garden, which contained several fountains:



After we took pains on the trip there to keep him dry under an umbrella, Ian decided that it was time to get wet. Not only was he walking around in the rain, but he was splashing water from the fountains everywhere, and he topped it off by dumping the contents of a large watering can down his front:



He discovered that said watering can was also serviceable as a megaphone, if you talk into the end:



Although Ian didn't seem the least bit phased by the fact that he was dripping wet, soaked from shoes to diaper to hair. But, as the person who was preparing to strap him on my back for a long walk home, I decided we better take him wet clothes off. After carrying a change of clothes for Ian in the diaper bag for eons without ever needing them, I finally took them out for this trip. So, Ian spent the rest of the trip dressed in nothing but a dry diaper. Here he is doing his best warrior impression in the desert section of the gardens, with a diaper for a loincloth and a ladle for a sword:



I know what you're thinking: "enough with the flora and fauna, what about the boy's education?". You're right. We'll be sure to fit in some museums and monuments in the next few days, and maybe a visit to the Senate to start his civics lessons.