You can’t remember the last time you changed a poopy diaper.

This evening while I was making dinner and Milo was in his high chair eating pre-dinner you came out of your room, closed your door, and said, “Dad, you can’t go into my room. There’s glass.”

Now, it didn’t really occur to me what was going on since Milo and dinner needed attention but Rose went in and said I had to go see. The glass light fixture in your room was gone from the ceiling and lay in pieces on the floor. There was still a little bit that was below the actual bulbs, still screwed in.

For some reason, I always have to play the straight man when things happen with you boys. Rose is stifling a laugh and I have to crouch down to “have a talk” with you about how you could have been hurt badly and how playing with your little basketball like you had been was dangerous, etc.

You also had had a pretty fun weekend and spent yesterday with Megan and Josh and no nap so all things considered you did fairly well but you did have a big meltdown when your mom had to go fax something at the corner office store. You wouldn’t come into the store so Rose had to leave you outside and some woman looked after you while you stayed out there. Milo was upset, he gets that way when you are having difficulties, but when Rose was done and came out you got into your carseat without any trouble.

I feel like you’re maturing, of course you are, but right now you are being argumentative when low on sleep although you rarely take naps (but super kudos to Megan for getting you, Milo, and Josh down for naps yesterday!). You seem to be working through your mad or sad times better but it’s still hard to get you to use your words and talk to me about what happened but we’re working on it. I want you to know that your emotions are normal but at the same time that there are more appropriate things to do than throw/hit/shove/etc.

In lighter news, you are playing soccer once a week and you are doing very well. The coach has to tell you to do smaller kicks, to dribble, because you blast the ball almost every chance you get. When we play baseball in the backyard we don’t play with your tee much anymore, I pitch to you and when you connect you can hit it a good 15-20 feet sometimes; I’m very impressed by your sporty-ness. Your mom and I are not quite sure where you got it from but it’s fun.

Tonight you chose to sleep in Milo’s room with him as you have the last couple nights. However, he was having trouble going to sleep and you got up and said, “I’m going to sleep in my own room, Milo is too wild.”

I love you monkey.

STP really snuck up on me this year. I suppose that has to do with the little riding I feel like I did this year, the craptacular weather, and the whole having a family and such. While standing in the start line at 6:00 AM on Saturday it was hard to imagine that it was here already and I was minutes away from beginning. I mean, this is the event that I do, I’m not some 5 time Iron Man like some (cough, cough, Jeremy) but this is what I look forward to, what I train for. Some things that could have gone better and some things that helped me get through after the jump.

(more…)

I’m working up some words to describe my two days of riding, flossing and flying.

In the meantime here are some links to pictures from STP by Marathon Foto. Click on the “buy” button next to the photo and then the pic itself to see a larger view.

Jeremy’s pics

Sean’s pics

David’s pics

Your mom told me that when you got home today you looked up at her and said, “Momma?” then “Dad”. She said you went looking around the house for me but I was at the store getting lighter fluid so I could grill some salmon for dinner. You weren’t very impressed by it when I put some on your tray but did suck off the baja sauce that I made for the baja salmon tacos. Your mom took the hint and gave you a bowl of plain yogurt. I swear, you’ll eat any flavor of yogurt, even plain. You also had corn, some salmon, and sauce. Your mom put you in the bath afterwards because you also had dirt on your tummy after playing in the sand box before dinner and that had mixed with everything you were eating for dinner.

I put Oskar to bed because he was having a hard time so you went to bed with Mom. After I had finally gotten him to go to sleep (he was complaining about his ear, he might have his first ear infection) I went to go clean up the kitchen and fold laundry. After a while Rose called me in because she was reading her book and you wouldn’t go to sleep with her so I had to come help.

See, you won’t fall asleep with Rose, only me. You curl up next to me and lay your head on my arm or shoulder and after fussing and fidgeting you fall asleep. You’ve also been known to head butt, pinch, kick, hit and poke while you’re supposed to be going to sleep.

I love you little bear.

I know. I live in the Pacific Northwest, I should be used to this weather. I am. However, the reason why I especially hate the weather right now, in June to be specific, is that I was really looking forward to this season for cycling. Last year I was just getting my legs, getting into rides and figuring out how it all worked. This time around I kept up some spin during the winter so I kept my leg strength from completely atrophying (kept my arm tan too, somehow) and I tried to hit the ground running, as they say. I took advantage of the sporadic nice days during winter and early spring and did a 62 mile ride a whole two months earlier in the season than last year.

And yet.

Here we are with snow in Snoqualmie Pass, branches on the ground, rain falling constantly and temperatures in the 50s. Enough.

This is my last week of school and Thursday and Friday are half days. I am moving to 6th grade next year so I may be using student labor to move my classroom tomorrow but there are about 6 of us moving and we are all depending on the other to move at the same time, otherwise it won’t work.

Milo seems to be getting more teeth to fill in the gaps between his molars and canines. He likes to fall asleep on my arm, snuggled up next to me. He knows me as “the guy who gets him to fall asleep”. He won’t do the same thing with Rose but as soon as I come to bed he lays down and goes to sleep.

Right now things are good with Oskar but lately he has been getting stuck several times a day. What I mean is that he will not be able to move forward until a precise series of events transpire, sometimes in a seemingly arbitrary way. If you move forward using a different series of events he will have to reverse them and go back to the beginning and then in the direction he feels is the “right” way.

Rose has a final tonight in one of her Childbirth Education classes and then she takes a break for the summer. Her last day for watching the kids is next Tuesday.

Other events coming up include a BBQ for Jeremy’s 35th and the Flying Wheels Century. STP is a month away and then the Summit to Surf is two weeks after that. I really hope the weather improves. I feel like a slob when I can’t ride for a week or two because of the rain and cold.

As we left the grocery store today we passed by the movies and Oskar said this about the new “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie:

“Dad, did you see the man and the rats movie? The rats jump all over and they are trying to look for the man. I love that movie!”

I really didn’t want to correct him.

I finally realized what my problem was with this whole internetting blogging thing, I live too much in my head. I create posts while I’m driving to work, in the shower, whatever but that’s as far as they go. I wrote a couple things with my students this week and had no problem, class was quiet and I wrote alongside them. Oh yeah, I also have two kids and a wife and a job and a house and the last thing I have time for is sitting at the computer unless kids are asleep and the wife isn’t using it.

Milo is growing up so much. Rose sent me a picture she took of him sitting at a kid table eating breakfast with a spoon on Friday, this is our little boy? Oskar is becoming such a great big brother too. He is asking more and more to do things with Milo, they’re sleeping in Milo’s room together right now. When Oskar was sleeping Thursday night Milo went and banged on his door and said something that sounded like “my brother”. He missed him and wanted to play with him.

Couple of weeks ago I road 60 miles in the Daffodil Classic, about half of which was with Jeremy and his friend who are training for an Ironman this summer. They asked if they could go on ahead and I said yes please. I was just happy I hung with them for 33 miles. Tomorrow I might be riding out to the cabin with Gerry.

Rose rode 30 miles today! I’m so proud of her! We packed up the kids and the bikes and went down to the Foothills trail and rode out to South Prarie and back. The boys did pretty well considering they were crammed into a bike trailer for a good 4 hours or so. We stopped in South Prarie for a smoothie and a rest. About 3 miles from our car Milo started crying pretty hard so I kicked it up a notch or two and sped off so I could get the boys out and settled down. Rose showed up a couple minutes later and then we all headed home. She is sore but she did it, that’s quite a feat especially since she hasn’t ridden her bike in years. I think.

We are all looking forward to summer. I weeded a bit of our patio today in the sunshine and I’ve been preemptive with our lawn this year. At least the back yard. I gave up the front yard to moss years ago and now the battle will be waged for the side yard by the driveway, I’m not ready to concede on that front yet.

Oskar’s school work has improved dramatically. He wanted to show me his work where he colored the “beautiful flowers” as he said. His teachers told Rose to “keep telling him what ever we were telling him”. She didn’t tell them that we’ve changed nothing, he just likes school a lot right now and is doing very well. His reading and counting are great, he has a 100 board (that I haven’t put up yet) but he can practice counting to 100. He is rhyming words (has been for a while) and working on spelling simple CVC 3 letter words like DAD and DOG. He tried to spell POND and I had to help him with the last sound but I was pleased he could figure out the blend.

I know I’m missing some obvious things here but that’s what happens when you don’t post very frequently.

This last weekend I enjoyed another successful Awesome Movie Nite with the guys up at Jeremy’s house. I rode up there Saturday afternoon and was quite pleased with my speed. Once I got on the Interurban trail I was pushing about 20.5 mph until I got to Renton and then had to manuever the roads and stay out of the major streets. I wasn’t looking forward to climbing the hill up to Kennydale but it wasn’t as bad as when I rode there last year for a BBQ. When I got there Jeremy went to pick up the delicious BBQ that had been pre-ordered. Absolutely scrum-tastic. He definitely kicked it up several notches which, unfortunately, we all must now raise ourselves up to unless we want to live in shame.

Movies watched were “Ghost Dog” and the new(est) version of “Appleseed”. Zach did the usual drink-argue-go sleep somewhere. Raving Rabbids was enjoyed by all (except Zach) and our heroes even found themselves on the Xbox interwebs getting p0wned like n00bs.

Sunday I enjoyed some quiet time at Jeremy’s as he had gone out for a bike ride. After a few calls from Rose I headed out. This time there was a big wind coming out of the south so all the way home my speed was way down from Saturday because of the nasty head wind. I also wasn’t looking forward to climbing South Hill but I knew it was inevitable so I decided on going up Meridian on the sidewalk so I could go slow and be out of harm’s way. I got home right as it began to rain, good timing. I didn’t set out to put in 70 miles but since I need to get ready for the Daffodil Classic this Sunday it doesn’t hurt.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I am under 190 lbs. Just barely though, maybe 189.5 but considering I weighed myself a week or so who know what I’m at now. Rose has been losing weight too and we joke about it because we haven’t been doing anything to facilitate said weight loss. My training has been negligible since we moved the boys swimming to Tuesday and Thursday. That used to be my spin days and it’s been hard to find time to go. I have my bike in my classroom now with a Tour de Milton route lined up hoping that I can hop on my bike and do 12 miles or so plus hills after school but with this crazy weather I haven’t had an opportunity.

However, there’s a huge problem for me with losing this weight: My ring is perilously close to falling off on its own. It’s already happened twice and I was showing Rose this morning by shaking my hand as if I was trying to get something off of it and off it slipped. I guess I have to work on building up my finger muscles.

With the promise of Spring actually making an appearance I will be getting out more and training harder and better and faster and stronger. I’m still really excited about cycling this season but I feel like I’ve had a couple false starts due to the weather and my family’s busy schedule. I’ve also got some new geegaws and cycling atire that I haven’t been able to try out yet so I’m looking forward to next week if it clears up like it’s supposed to and the temperature to come back up.