I am a stuffy American

Ethan and the Washington Monument made completely out of leaves.

My favorite monument, the Jefferson. I love how the dome is the top of a gourd. I wish I had taken a better photo of him inside.

The Capital building.

The real one.

Watching trains go by with Elliot and Ava.

Today Ethan and I met Julie and Elliot and Adelle and Ava at the Botanical Gardens. Right now there are these neat to-scale models of the important buildings and monuments in Washington made completely out of plant materials (see photos) on display and some pretty amazing trains - not to mention the thousands of poinsettas.

As we walked through, I stopped to take a photo of Ethan and a Washington Monument made of leaves. A group of people from Asia approached me and one of the men asked if he could take photos of Ethan. I said yes with a laugh.

Then, one of the women in the group came up and picked Ethan up right out of his stroller. I stood there in shock for a moment, wondering how anyone would even think it was right to pluck someone else's baby out of a stroller without asking them. The lady then began to kiss Ethan and pose for the camera. I finally got the guts to say something and with a weak smile I mustered, "Um, I probably need to catch up with the people I'm here with."

The lady just smiled at me and then back to the cameras that were wildly shooting her photo with my son. After what seemed like several minutes, she put him back in his stroller. But the cameras kept clicking. I sat for a second, wondering if I should just walk off while they were taking photos (I don't think they understood that I needed to leave). Then out of the blue, another woman came up and picked him up.

It was at that moment that I felt like laughing out loud. I began to imagine the culture from which these people came. And then I thought of that security bubble that we keep around ourselves here in America. And I realized that I am a stuffy American who probably needs to relax a little bit.

But really, who wants a picture of themselves and someone else's baby?