The Burbachs Go To Washington

Hey y'all,

As planned, we left last Thursday for our trip to Maryland & Washington, D.C. Devoted reader Clay Mercer suggested that I might be subjecting myself to such a grueling voyage in order to generate good material for the blog. After all, when he needs to write something for his writer's group, he says, "I just go to Best Buy and try to buy something. Then I go home and write about it." I'm not going to lie: when I bought tickets for two adults and two small children to traverse the country, I did think, "This is going to be the depth of misery, but I bet I get at least four blog posts out of it."

Nope.

Everyone was well-behaved. Laney wore her seat belt. Hagen didn't cry. Everyone napped. The scenery was lovely at 30,000 ft. The closest we came to an embarrassing moment was when Laney told me, "Mom, I have boogers." "Laney," I said, "I hate that word, but let me find you a Kleenex." "MOM!" Laney repeated, "I have BOOGERS." "I heard you, Laney. I'm just looking for a tissue in this bag." A flight attendant happened to be walking toward us, and Laney yelled to her, "EXCUSE ME?" And I thought, "Lordamighty, this is when Laney tells a Delta employee about her boogers." But I produced a tissue in the nick of time, and an etiquette crisis was averted.

In fact, I would say that the flight to Reagan International also boasted one of my proudest moments as a parent. As we were landing, Laney looked out the window and said, "Mom, where's da slide?" "Laney, I don't know what you're talking about." "Mom, is supposta be a SLIDE." "Laney, I'm sorry I don't understand what you're saying." And then Laney pulled out the safety information card she had been studying earlier and pointed to people exiting the plane via slide:

You got me. Then, Dad had to explain that the slide only comes out if something really, really bad happens. Color you disappointed.

I would say I'm disappointed that our flight wasn't exciting enough to generate multiple blog posts, but I'd be lying. Better this way than the alternative.

Love,

Mom