Very busy weekend

So, on Saturday, we had a jam-packed day. Rachel and I had dentists' appointments at 9:30, which necessitated all of us getting up earlier than we wanted, racing to the dentist to get there by the appointed time -- ONLY TO BE KEPT WAITING FOR AN HOUR WITH NO APOLOGY OR EXPLANATION. I was about to walk out, but then that would entail finding a new dentist for both of us, which I don't really want to do right now. I asked the dentist, Dr. Wali, to be especially gentle with Rachel -- Rachel misses Dr. Mike, our old dentist in Gresham, Oregon, who was VERY gentle and excellent with patients of all ages -- and she did. But the fluoride paste she gave her was pineapple-flavored, and Rachel hated it so much that she yelped, so Dr. Wali gave her some pink fluoride rinse, but the pineapple flavor persisted. So much that on the short drive home, Rachel asked that I pull over, and she hopped out of the car and threw up. "I hate myself!" she sobbed. "This is ALL MY FAULT!" (She tends to get this way whenever she vomits, for some reason. And yes, she did ask for the paste instead of the rinse, but I told her that it was not her fault that it didn't agree with her.)

We got home, jumped into Drew's car and went to pick up Kira, a friend of Rachel's. Kira's parents are in Europe for a cruise celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary, and Kira's mom's mom, who is (according to Rachel) around 78, was staying with Kira and her sister, and Kira's mom had asked us to host Kira for a playdate to relieve her mom, and we said sure. Then I realized that Mount Vernon was having a Revolutionary War encampment all weekend, and since Kira is as nuts about Colonial history as Rachel is, we decided to take her along.

It was the most perfect spring day imaginable. We walked around the encampment, which consisted of tents with people weaving, cleaning rifles, selling foodstuffs, etc. A guy playing a Hessian soldier referred to Rachel as "fraulein" and kissed her hand (which she found creepy). There was a reenactment of a skirmish between the British and Continental armies, which was surprisingly well-narrated by, of all people, a Canadian, who explained that the reenactors camp out all weekend and pay about $2,500 for their outfits, equipment, etc. It really was amazing watching the skirmish, especially as the armies got closer in, fired guns at each other (blanks, not bullets, of course) and fell over in mock death. (Rachel got a kick out of the narrator saying at the end, "Now, they will begin to recover...unless they've had a heart attack. God forbid.")

We went to the visitors' center for lunch, and then later on Rachel and Kira watched a short film about George Washington. At the end of it, a woman in Colonial costume came up to us and said, "Excuse me, how old are the girls?" I explained that Rachel was our daughter and Kira was her friend, and they are both 6 1/2, and the woman told us how impressed she was that they knew so much history. "They were talking about the events the whole time," she said, and then Rachel piped up, "Lafayette was Washington's best friend!" The woman then said, "I don't know that many girls know as much history as they do." True, that.

Then we went back home. Drew dropped Rachel and me off at home so we could change quickly to go to a local production of the ballet "The Firebird" and three other works, two set to Mozart and Schubert and one a cool baseball-themed ballet set to '40s and '50s tunes. It was done by a local ballet company, Ballet Nova, and while the dancing wasn't that great (one "Firebird" ballerina fell, and Rachel gasped and asked, "Was that intentional?" "No, sweetie," I answered), I took her mainly for the cultural exposure. My great dream is for Rachel to be able to recognize great classical music numbers from various ballets, and to someday at least be able to guess what composer she's hearing on the radio or on her Iwhateverit'scalled based on her knowledge of various musical styles.

And then we came home. We fed Rachel a jelly sandwich for a very late dinner, then sent her off to bed while I watched the most recent two episodes of "Mad Men."