DC Travel Tips for families

1.  Take the Metro. It's super cheap and you don't have to worry about getting lost.  OK, you sort of have to worry about not taking the blue line and going to Arlington Cemetery when you mean to take the Orange line and go back to your hotel, but even then, it's no biggie. 
Plus, it is a train.  Which means your kid's head might explode from excitement from pressing multiple elevator buttons, riding escalators, being underground, and then HOLY COW riding a train. Do not be alarmed if your child starts chanting "STEP BACK DOORS ARE CLOSING" at random intervals.

Gracie saying, "Hey, don't you want to ride my train car?"

I'd read some Mommy blogs about taking the Metro with kids in tow.  They all talked about awful it was and how rude people were to them.  So I was prepped with ample comebacks if someone was rude about my kids on the Metro.  False.  I think those Moms must've been idiots.  Or tried to ride at rush hour.  Or didn't know what they were doing.  But my tube skills from my semester in London stepped in and I had our family riding like the celebrities we are.  (Because loads of famous people take public transportation!) 
But here are some key tips:  Look up on-line for any delays or construction.  You can also find out online which stations have broken elevators. Use the online trip planner to familiarize yourself with the route you'll be taking.
Make sure your stroller can fold easily if you need to take the escalator in a pinch.  (We borrowed a friend's slender folding double rather than taking our double wide jogger or stadium seating Phil and Teds.) 
It is kinda difficult to locate the elevators on the street because they are not next to the regular Metro station entrance.  In the stations, follow the clearly marked handicapped signs.  Be kind to the metro station workers, and they may just let you enter and exit freely without ever swiping your card.  Enter the train from the end cars, not the middle and DO NOT TRAVEL DURING RUSH HOUR. 

2.  Set the bar low and be flexible

Going on a spaceship!

Decide before you go on vacation what type of family you are.  Are you see everything  and learn lots kind of people?  Or are you going on vacation to have fun, get away from your daily routine, and spend time with your family kind of people?  We are the latter.  So we chose to do one activity a day.  The Air and Space Museum Saturday, the Zoo on Sunday, and Natural History on Monday.  We would've liked to see some monuments and the like, but the Lincoln Memorial is over a mile from the nearest Metro station so it didn't fit into our plans this time.  Nor did scaling the Washington Monument so my four year old and 18 month old could stare out a tiny window.  We had originally planned on doing the Natural History Museum on Sunday, but the weather report for Monday was for possible rain, so we literally switched gears en route and just kept riding the Metro onto the zoo.  It made for a long day so our plan to go out to dinner later was scratched and we just got take out and ate on our room's giant conference table and then watched the Storage Wars marathon.
3.  Scheduled downtime. 
Gracie needs a nap.  She just does.  She's flexible about when she takes it, but generally she needs to sleep from 2-4.  And Henry has running around needs.  So we tried to schedule time each day when the kids could just run around like crazy people.  We let them run around by the Gorillas in the zoo for about 30 minutes and then we spent some time playing chase on the National Mall.  We also packed some of Henry's trains and some special invisible ink coloring books for Henry to play with in our hotel room during Gracie's naptime.  It was also nice for us adults to slow down and loll about on our comfy king sized bed and read our books.

4.  Pack and dress appropriately

This means if they are calling for hail storms and possible tornadoes and flooding, and you pack each of your children outfits for everyday for both hot and cold weather, and corresponding rain coats and fleeces, you, as the Mommy, MAY need more than a cardigan from Old Navy.  It sure would've been nice to have had a rain coat as we tromped from the Metro to the Air and Space in historic rain fall.  I have a friend whose parents have ponchos from pretty much every tourist place in America because they didn't adhere to this rule. 
BUT we did have two umbrellas.
Also, I was the dorky mom who dressed our family alike.  Yes, some people dress their kids alike so they can find them in a crowd.  But I know me and I wouldn't be able to remember what color the kids were wearing unless I was wearing it myself.  So on Saturday, we were the preppy pink and green team.  Sunday, the aqua and orange team, and Monday--the blue team. Also, should your son INSIST on wearing his Buzz Lightyear pajama shirt to the Air and Space museum (duh, he's a Space Ranger!), let him.  You probably forgot an undershirt anyhow.

5.  THE BACKPACK
Even if you've moved beyond the diaper bag stage, I recommend packing a diaper bag anyways.  We use a backpack rather than my purse so that you can truly be hands free and also Sloan doesn't feel like a tool rocking a Vera Bradley backpack-purse.  (Which, BTW, we saw a man on the Metro carrying a Vera Bradley purse.  We both agree that this is just wrong.  We're pretty sure our gay friends would agree.) I also packed a cooler full of sippy cups, water, apples, bananas, goldfish, a sleeve of Ritz crackers, cheese sticks, granola bars, and dum dums.  But in our diaper bag I had a change of clothes for each child in a zip lock with an extra bag should you have wet clothes (which we used because it was several blocks from the Smithsonian Metro to the NHM and Henry didn't make it), our camera, Purell wipes and purell, an umbrella, and more diapers than you think you could possibly ever need.  In a pinch, diapers can be opened and used to wick away moisture from a recently peed upon stroller.

6.  Extend grace
I'm pretty certain there were several times that I could have just lost it with Sloan.  Perhaps he wasn't listening to me or obeying me or I felt rushed or they ran out of Cinnamon Toast Crunch at the hotel.  But every time I wanted to yell at him, I thought, "We've only got three days here and I don't want to spend it fighting.  Let. It. Go."  And, to my surprise, the world did not end when I didn't constantly correct everyone at all times.  Perhaps the Holy Spirit doesn't need my help in pointing out everyone's flaws.  Hmmmm....  I wonder what this would look like in daily life. 

7.  Laugh Often
Things are going to go wrong.  They just are.  Remember, travelling with family is an adventure and on adventures, things rarely go as planned.  And you might even find yourself being embarrassed by your family members. 
So when you find yourself yelling across a room, "Hey, why don't you two boys hold each other for a picture?" It's okay to pee your pants a little.   But not too much because you didn't pack yourself a second outfit.
If your son should scream from the bathroom stall in the Natural History Museum "Hey, Mommy, come look at my poopy.  It's the biggest poopy I've ever done!"  Just laugh and be thankful he's pooping in the potty because he's already in his second pair of pants.
Also, should your husband insist of making fun of stroller strides Mommies as he pushes the double stroller--let him.  You're not having to push the stroller.  Who cares if he randomly, throughout the entire trip, will start doing stroller lunges or hips thrusts or high kicks saying things like "This is really going to rip my quads" or "Right now I'm jamming my glutes" or, my personal favorite, "I'm totally shredding my scrote right now."