Anthony: 1, Window: 17

The first time my wise father saw our little house with its classic French windows in the dining room, he said "You should replace those windows with tempered glass or a little boy is going to put his hand right through one of them!"

That was eight years ago. This evening Anthony was skipping across the dining room, tried to stop, and put his hand right through one of them.

I was cooking supper for the boys while Andrea was at the gym and I heard a crash and a cry. Not just an ow-ow-I-bonked-my-head kind of a cry but an ow-this-hurts-and-I'm-not-sure-why-and-I'm-BLEEDING-I'M-BLEEDING kind of cry and sure enough he'd opened up a couple of nasty looking gashes under his right forearm. I got him patched up a bit and had him put some pressure on the deeper of the two cuts and off we went to the prompt care, Paxton alternately scared because his big brother is crying and mad because supper is going to be delayed. Andrea came and took Kenrick and Paxton home and I sat with Anthony in the waiting room, bloody rag on his arm, where he asked repeatedly if he was going to have to get stitches and stated soberly, "At least I didn't break my arm."

A couple of hours later, after x-rays, swabs, shots, probing, prodding, cleaning, fishhooks, monofilament, lollipops, stickers and band-aids, we said goodbye to the nurses and took our seventeen stitches home to show proudly to Mommy and big brother. "This is fun!", exclaimed Anthony halfway through the visit. Sorry little buddy, this isn't my idea of fun.

Witness the wreckage:

Blood on the shirt? Check. Massive bandage? Check. Broken window? Check. Lollipop? Is this how we reward disaster? Check. Oh, and notice the second missing tooth? It fell out two days after the first. Not related to the window incident, but thought I'd throw it in anyway.

So, all is well again. Except for the window that I'm going to have to replace...

Middle Boy: Middle Toothless

The other morning we discovered a new tooth pushing up behind one of Anthony's four loose ones and so decided that it was time to give the little wiggler a tug. A quick pull and a pop and Anthony's perfect little smile is temporarily interrupted by a pause in the pearly whites! He couldn't be more proud.

Sir Paxton

Beware Sir Paxton, Black Knight of the Crooked Table!

Rain, rain, go away...

After 6.6 inches of rain in April and 5.7 in May, we're feeling a bit waterlogged out here on the prairie. The total precipitation for those two months was about 4.6 inches more than normal. The rain has delayed crops, flooded rivers, and turned acres of fertile corn fields into waterfowl habitat. I took a picture of one pond that I pass by on my way to work; it appeared sometime in March in a low field next to the road and doesn't seem to be in too much of a hurry to retreat.

Last year this view would have been all green and corny. This year we have to look out for bird watchers with their cameras and spotting scopes eyeing White Breasted Loons or migrating Short-billed Dowitchers or whatever.

Anyway, it's raining again...

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Say Again?

Anthony came downstairs this evening while Andrea was putting the boys to bed.

"Mommy said for you to make a bottle for Paxton and, um, to make it really polluted."

"You mean diluted?"

"Oh yeah, diluted!"

First Class Service

This evening Paxton dug into his kitchen drawer of toys, pulled out a little plate and a toy fork, and brought it to Anthony. "Thank you Paxton! Yummy!" (eating motions)

Next he toddled back to his drawer and found another pink plate and a spoon, this time for me. "Thank you Paxton!" Back to the drawer.

Dig, dig, toss, dig, and he toddles back proudly holding up his offering for Kenrick. A plate and a ... purple block? "Good job Paxton."

Ready for His First Tri...

Tricycle that is, Paxton's ready to go.

Adventures and Challenges

The last couple of Saturdays have been interesting.

On May 9 a friend from work and I participated in the 2nd annual Jubilee Park Adventure Orienteering Race. This race is an extension of regular orienteering, which I've written about before (here and here), that throws the map and compass reading and trail running together with some mountain biking and other odd events with the intent of getting the teams of two intrepid explorers lost in the woods, exhausted and twitching on the trail, frustrated and shouting at each other, or some combination of all three. Mike and I competed in the longer of the two events against 25 or so other teams (I don't know how many of the 50 registered teams did the short course). The long course was supposed to take from three to six hours with two segments each of biking and orienteering and two short 'mystery events' thrown in for variety. Happily we got neither lost nor frustrated with each other, but we were starting to twitch a bit as we crossed the finish line almost exactly five hours after we started. We finished in second place.

I snapped a picture of Mike with my phone before the start of the race:

Andrea happened to stop by just as we were passing through the parking lot. We're not too muddy at this point. Nor are we moving too fast. Slow and steady, slow and steady...

The course ended up being about two hours longer than intended, it was muddy, hilly, and difficult, but it was well organized and fun and I'm excited to try it again next year!

Then last weekend, on May 16, I packed up the road bike and wetsuit and we headed up to north-western IL for another shot at the Galena Triathlon. This year I went with a few more miles in the bike seat but a lot fewer laps in the pool under my belt. The morning was sunny but chilly, the water a brisk 63 degrees with a rough chop that didn't help my lack of swim fitness at all as I struggled through the 660 yard swim looking more like a bobbing cork than a corking porpoise. I finished the swim about two minutes slower than last year - kind of frustrating, but kind of expected as well. But it was the wind that really stood up and took a bow this year, and it was brutal. The bike course goes east then north then east then south and then east again, and can you guess which direction the wind was coming from? Anyway, I was glad that I'd been on my bike a bit this spring and at the end of the 18 miles I actually felt pretty good. The run course was much different this year and much better. Still just over 4 miles and still hilly, but absent the demoralizing, mile-long ascent at the beginning and the knee-bending descent to the finish line. I finished the run with a faster average pace than I've ever been able to run at Galena, and finished the race in the best position that I've ever been in - number 400 out of 799 competitors. Not too bad.

I also found out that I have more of a pre-race ritual than I realized, and that when it gets interrupted I'm more of a head case than I ever wanted to acknowledge. About ten minutes before the race started I realized that I'd forgotten to eat the PowerBar that I'd so carefully packed in my bag. Unfortunately, the bag was with Andrea, on its way to the finish line, oblivious to my plight. No PowerBar! What am I going to to? Well, nothing I guess, just forget about it. But I couldn't, and half way through the swim I found myself obsessing about my lack of fuel, certain that my limbs were weak and heavy because I'd already burned through my pitiful breakfast. Oh good grief! Stop thinking about that stupid PowerBar and swim!

I was finally able to stop thinking about it and did just fine.

We also found out that Andrea needs some more practice with action photography. She got a couple shots of my back as I trudged past and one of me putting on my shoes before finally getting in position to catch the finish.

I'm just kidding honey! I really do appreciate your support and encouragement, and that means more to me than all the pictures in the world. I couldn't do it without you.

Next weekend I'm staying home.

Weekend in Q-Town

Last weekend we took advantage of a spur-of-the-moment invitation to go see some friends of ours a couple of hours south and west of us. We had a fabulous time - I can tell because I could hardly stay awake at work today - and took a few pictures to rememberate the event.

Kenrick and Anthony spent as much time as possible on the tire swing.

That is, when they weren't playing in the barn...

or riding the pony.

Paxton enjoyed sitting down to watch the sheep. He decided to try some of the grass himself, but we didn't get a picture of that, unfortunately.

The Dogwood Festival was going on in Quincy, so we headed downtown to watch the parade.

Whew! Time to sit down. Watching a parade is hard work!
We also checked out some of the local architecture. Wow!
Next activity: a hike in the woods and a little mushroom hunting. Andrea balances gracefully over a tricky crossing.
Paxton's just along for the ride. Another gully, another fallen-tree bridge...

Kenrick and Anthony managed to step in every muddy hole in the forest. Here we are trying to get out of a particularly steep gully after Kenrick temporarily lost his shoe in the mud.
Andrea spotted a couple of flowers...

...and a pretty dogwood.
Anthony found a prize turtle shell.

What was it we were looking for again? Oh yeah, mushrooms! We did find a couple, like this nice specimen about to get plucked, and fried them up delicious on Sunday afternoon.
After mushroom hunting we headed back to the farm and rounded out the evening with some music, some food, and some fellowship before collapsing happily into our beds. I'm glad we didn't have any activities planned, I was bone tired from doing nothing all day!

Good Tips for Blogging Smart

Bananas just re-posted an article about blogging safely with some good advice for young and old. If you have a blog, please take a look: http://www.absolutelybananas.com/2009/04/blogging-smart-how-to-protect-yourself-and-your-family-online.html

Spring Bloomers

Bright Eyes

Happy Birthday Anthony!

Anthony's sixth birthday was this week and we celebrated. All week long. What luck to have your birthday fall during Spring Break and to have Grandma come visit for the whole week!

Here's some pictures from the festivities on Sunday:

The candles.

The cake.

I can't believe I got Lego's!

Kiera helping out.

Our little man - grass stains, grins and mischief. Happy number six, Anthony!

Battleship Master

A couple of Saturdays ago Anthony wanted me to play Battleship with him. You remember Battleship, don't you? The game where you set up your five ships on your board and your opponent sets up his ships on his board and then without looking at each other's boards you take turns calling out grid coordinates in hopes of hitting and sinking all of your opponents ships. The grid coordinates get called out like, "A-4" or "D-6", and the response is usually a "Miss". But sometimes you get a "Hit!" and then, oh boy, you get to put a red peg on your screen and you start calling out the squares around it in hopes of finishing off your poor opponent's ship.

Anyway, I agreed to play with Anthony so we set up our ships and started. My strategy for this game was to let Anthony sink as many of my ships as possible (kids hate it when their ships get sunk), so I started calling out grids across the diagonal, not really caring whether I got a hit or not. "A-1", "Miss", "B-2", "Miss", "C-3", "Hit", Hmm. So I tried a couple more next to "C-3" and quickly sunk one of Anthony's ships. Anthony, on the other hand, was randomly scattering shots all across the board and not having much success. The game progressed and pretty soon I had sunk all but two of his ships. Then, still working my way across the diagonal, I hit three locations that were physically impossible with the ships that Anthony had left. What's going on? Are you sure I had a hit here? And here? And here? No? Anthony looked confused, so I called time out and slid his board over to take a look.

Turns out he was confused. Not one of my supposed 'hits' were in a location where he had ships - he was just arbitrarily interpreting my coordinates and deciding whether I'd hit a ship or not!

A quick explanation later and Anthony proclaimed, "Okay, now I know what to do!" And so we set it up again. This time I could tell that he was counting out the grids carefully before responding, and he sunk one of my ships before I got my first hit. Then I got the second and, knowing which way his ship was facing, quickly got the third and fourth. I expected the fifth and final hit to sink his aircraft carrier, the only ship in the game that's five units long, so I called out the last coordinate. "Hit!", Anthony called out, "And sink ... all of the ships!!!" Smiling, he held up all five ships stacked on top of each other.