This morning wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Getting the boy out of bed at 6:30 was a little challenging but not too bad. He was ready and out the door to the bus stop right on time. Lil E seemed excited to go to school but once we got there she did not want to stay. I had to do the old hug, kiss, goodbye then turn and walk out paying no attention to the devastation I was leaving behind. I can’t wait til they get home and tell me about their first day.
In-laws were in town this weekend which always means I get to ride my bike a lot. Rode down and did Chaires ride with Big Tim then did an MTB ride with Cliff on Sunday. I wasn’t feeling the Munson Hills so much on Sunday. Cliff has a new mountain bike and I can’t blame him for wanting to ride it but…. some clay roads on Sunday would have been preeeeeeeemo. I know because the parts of the ride that were offroad were so-so and the parts that were on the road were NICE and cool and breezy. Anyway… crammed in 7.5 hours of bike riding over the weekend and that feels good.
Cliff did get this cool pic though.
I need to get back in the habit of carrying the camera on rides. I’ve missed out on some good pics.
Yesterday I was telling the fellas that as much as I want to race Kenda Cup 1 and as hard as I tried to find a ride up there maybe I’m just not meant to do this race.
Turns out The Boy started riding his bike yesterday. Pretty awesome moment that wouldn’t have happened if I’d gone racing.
Turns out all he needs was to get offroad and he took right to it.
Oh…. she got a dermoid cyst removed from her temple too. That’s the kind of cyst that can have hair, teeth and other nasty (gross?) things in it.
She got a twofer. The procedure went well. She’s tough and handled it like a tough girl would. Like most parents I just wished I could jump on the table and take the scalpel for her but it doesn’t work that way. Unfortunately. She’ll probably recover faster than I would anyway I guess.
For some reason we thought once we got home we would be getting right back to normal. Unfortunately it hasn’t been that way. Which is normal with the procedure. She’s sore from the 3 inch cut in her belly of course but the main problem is the bladder spasms. Since her bladder was tweaked it’s a little freaked out so it spasms and cramps. When this happens she has to pee, and it’s bloody. So she has to pee anywhere from every 15 minutes to 60 minutes. At night this is worse than having an infant. Didn’t count how many times we were up Saturday night but Sunday night she had to go 16 times between 9:30 and 6 am. The wakeup call goes something like this, “I GOTTA GO POTTY!!!!”. That’s kinda rough. So we’re alternating shifts.
So riding is taking a back seat right now. I did squeeze in 1.5 hours Thursday morning before she had to be at the hospital at 11am. There’s a nice little part of Jacksonville near downtown called San Marco that is nice to ride in. So looks like no racing for me Sunday as it would just be too much stress on the family at a time when we need all hands on deck.
Of course without exercise and good sleep our household gets crabby so Erin and I are trying to get routine in place so we can each get our therapy.
We stayed in the Ronald McDonald House which is really a great service for families with ill children. Being there for three days made me realize that her/our problems are really pretty minor. It’s sad what some children have to go through. It was easy it pick out the families with the most ill child because they were the one’s who were most comfortable in the house which obviously meant they had been there a while. One little girl had no hair and massive scars on her scalp. Very sad.
We found that she really REALLY likes to get doped up on valium and morphine.
We asked to see the dermoid cyst (wanted to see if there was hair, teeth, etc) and they seemed a little freaked out by the request so we said, “oh just kidding, hah ahaha”. I did want to see it though.
We had a lot of fun at the Magic Kingdom. I’m glad we didn’t go any sooner. I think Lil E is right at the bottom of practical age range. Next year she’ll be able to hang better and we’ll really tear it up.
Our favorites were Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain and Pirate of the Caribbean. Lil E got to see the princesses perform and Nate got to see Jack Sparrow and even became part of his crew. I think we rode Thunder mountain 6 times, splash mountain 5 and pirates 4. Nate and I rode space mountain twice but honestly it wasn’t worth the wait.
We did the character breakfast and we all like Stitch the best.
Here’s a full video of the boy and I on Thunder Mountain. It’s kinda funny.
It seems like kid leashes are coming back. They’ve tried to make them more friendly looking but a leash is a leash. I’m of the opinion that if your kid isn’t old enough to understand why they need to stay close they’re probably too young.
The whole Smith Posse went out for the Turkey Trot this year. We signed The Boy up for his first 1 mile and Big E and I signed up for the 5k.
Waiting for the start.
And we’re off.
He did great. He walked briefly twice and finished in about 10:15. I was really proud of him. We didn’t bother signing Lil E up for the mile but she ended up busting the whole thing out anyway in 18 minutes. So I was super proud of her too.
Big E and I had a communication malfunction and couldn’t find each other after the mile so I decided to start at the front and then stop about 1/2 a mile in and wait for her. The only problem was I was having trouble scanning three lanes of running traffic. I stood there for a few minutes then figured I must have missed her so I can maybe another 1/4 mile and stopped again. This time I picked a high spot where I had a nice view. I saw Mrs. Red Dragon go by then Mrs. Big Worm. After another few minutes I gave up and just started running figuring she must be in front of me.
I get to the finish and it says 25 minutes so I know she wasn’t in front of me. I run through the finish and start backtracking the course. I find her on the last corner so at least we got to run together for about 1/10th of a mile. Overall we were pretty bummed since we were both looking forward to running it together.
They fight and argue and fight and fight and argue and fight and argue and argue and I’m mother trucking tired of it.
It’s time like this when I find myself thinking back to the days that I lived in an apartment downtown with my girlfriend, I rode my bike when I wanted, ate when I wanted and napped when I wanted. These thoughts are useless and do no good.
I just mixed an extra large margarita so things should be smoothing out shortly.
I had no time to ride today… I’m thinking of going for a solo night ride after I get a good buzz on…. ah who am kidding. I’ll ride tomorrow….. mother trucker.
This was the first year The Boy has thoroughly understood, absorbed and participated in Halloween.
Snow White and Optimus Prime.
We did the neighborhood parade.
Some trick or treating. Then it was time to get our sugar buzz on!
Lil E hung pretty good. She’s a girl who knows exactly what she wants. If someone started to put candy that she didn’t like in her bag she would say, ” I don’t like that”. We tried to explain to her that when you’re trick or treating you just accept what they give you, but it didn’t work. It was kind of funny. I was proud and embarrassed at the same time. Proud that she was confident enough to tell people how she felt, but embarrassed because she came off as a spoiled brat.
We sort of created this monster. I remember the first time she pitched a fit about not getting the pink straw at Moe’s. We said she could drink out of the green straw she was given, not drink at all or go ask to exchange her green straw for a pink one. She got up, walked to the girl behind the register and asked to exchange her green straw for a pink one. When she got back to the booth she was wearing the smile of I-Am-Unstoppable. Ever since then she has asked for exactly what she wants and if she is given something she doesn’t want she says so.
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