Martin Luther King day

            Louis watching Lisa at work with her roller 

 Louis snoozing after his painting session 

This inauguration lark isn't all rock star glamour and glittery parties. (If only.) In an effort to keep it real, PEBO dedicated Martin Luther King day, a federal holiday and the eve of his inauguration, a day of community service. Although living here for six months only makes DC our temporary community, Louis and I still rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in at an elementary school in the very real section of southeast Washington known as Congress Heights. Okay, so actually we just went along for the ride to accompany Lisa and her son Alex, who in turn were accompanying Lisa's cousin Zach, an Obamaite who took last semester off school to work on the election campaign but we still got stuck in. 

Turned out the school in question was the fittingly named Martin Luther King Jr Elementary. (The comedian Chris Rock reckons you can tell you're in a dodgy bit of town when roads and buildings are named after MLK or Malcolm X.) Its hallway needed a lick of paint so, like PEBO, we wielded a paintbrush and roller and got to work. Louis watched - for a bit, until he got bored and I strapped him into the baby carrier until he got bored of that too and I had to feed him. He helped too - sticking his hand in the paint tin. So much for his organic diet. What with that and yesterday's outdoor rock concert in freezing temperatures I'm clearly just trying to see how many parenting no-nos I can clock up in 48 hours. Something tells me braving tomorrow's 1 million-plus inauguration crowd for hours on end will complete my hat-trick of what-not-to-dos with a small baby. Oh well. Even if it's downhill from here at least he can't complain that life's boring.