Hill Baby

Yesterday brought some mercifully warm weather, so we finally got to take a long stroll around the Capitol Hill.   For those of you who haven't visited (hi Linda!) or aren't familiar with DC (hi Annie!), the residential part of the neighborhood looks like this:

 

Not our house.  

In addition to the gorgeous houses, neighborhood feel, and access to Metro that keeps us from ending up in jail due to some DC-driving road-rage incident, one of the reasons we moved here was for the Hill Baby Experience.   You can't swing a diaper bag in this neighborhood without hitting two babies, a couple of toddlers, and a pregnant woman.  The parks are filled with kids.  When I was pregnant, our neighbors constantly asked how I was doing, and when Henry arrived, they brought food and passed down (unloaded?) toys.  The neighborhood moms' network takes care of new parents, gives advice on every urban-parenthood issue you can imagine, and aggressively harasses local officials when there is a problem with crime or city services or school administration.  The restaurants all have kids' menus and don't even blink when you bring your giant off-road-ready stroller into the busy dining room.  Not that we ever do that.

Anyway, I love our neighborhood.  As I said before, I envisioned my maternity leave as being filled with long walks up and down historic streets, Izzy trotting along happily next to our modest, sensibly-sized stroller.  Heh.  So the weather finally thawed to a balmy 45 degrees yesterday and we headed out for a giant loop of the Hill, walking all the way down around the Capitol grounds, enjoying some blue skies and streets we don't usually travel in the course of our daily routine.

 

Unimpressed with SCOTUS.  

Maybe he's still mad at them for giving all the argument seats to those Sidwell brats.

Hal looked at the birds and trees before dozing off.  Izzy trotted along.  It was a great afternoon.