Two weeks AGAIN?

Two weeks again? I can't believe it. Things have been busy. I just hope I don't fall off the rebeldad blogroll. I really write this drivle for myself and the kids, but it's still fun to be recognized. For the first of the recently missed two weeks, I was still helping my neighbor frame up his addition. With that my mom was here (see previous post) and sleeping in our den/guest room. We've decided to host the neighborhood Beef and Beer event, which means my list of things to do has grown dramatically. The biggest of the items is to address the peeling wallpaper in the living room and foyer. The Sunday before Labor Day, we began removing the wallpaper in our living room, foyer, AND hallway. This had us up 'til about midnight just about every night last week, and we have just only now finished removing all the paper. We still have to wash off the residual glue, sand, and, of course, paint. All of this has dropped blogging to the bottom of a long list of priorities.

It's scary how quickly these kids are growing up. And even scarier how quickly I forget stuff. As I sit here finally prepared to capture all the great things that have happened in these past two weeks, I am drawing blanks. Even today seems a blur. We went to the Brandywine Arts Festival. On the way down, the kids were adorable. Playing with each other and making each other laugh. It was great. At the festival, the kids did remarkably well -- considering there was little for them to do and we stayed way past nap time. One of the reasons we ended up staying so long was that I was hemming and hawing about which piece to buy from a local artist, Joe Jacobs. We had seen his stuff just before lunch, but as we were looking and trying to decide, LuLu fell apart. So we told ourselves we'd come back after lunch. After lunch and a circuitous route which ensured that we checked out some other artists first, we ended up back in Joe's booth. To my chagrin, the piece which had originally drawn us into the booth was gone. As I stood there trying to decide among three others, this women ends up buying the one which had been my new frontrunner. After another agonizingly long period of time, I decided I was just trying to convince myself to buy something, and ended up leaving empty-handed and deflated. All of Joe's pieces were originals not prints, so it would have been really neat to have gotten just that perfect piece. Lesson learned.

After dinner tonight, we went for a bike ride/walk. Four and I were on bikes. LuLu was in the stroller. Mon pushed her. With the exception of a few bits of assistance on only the steepest of the hills, Four made it all the way around the big block. Which reminds me of one of the things previously forgotten. Four pulled out his fixed gear bike which has the training wheels removed. He would ride (coast) about 8-10 feet and tell us he had done it. I went over and helped him steady until he got some speed. Then he was on his own. He rode 30-40 feet all on his own. We repeated this about 20 times. Sometimes going on the sidewalk, sometimes in the yard. We recently had some stumps removed and the trips in the yard became dangerously closer and closer to the holes left by the stumpgrinder. Finally, the inevitable happened. That boy went for it. Not yet four, that boy aimed right for the middle of the hole. The six-inch hole ate up the front 12-inch wheel and the momentum shift sent him head over heels. Mon and I were both very nervous and ran over to console what we were sure would be a shaken, maybe even broken, little boy. Before we got there he popped up, brushed himself off, and said, "That was fun! I'm going to do it again." Somewhat foolishly, we got the video camera out, and encouraged him to ride other places. Nope. He followed through on his plan to do it again. This time the result was not as pretty. Dirt in the teeth. Dirt all over his face. And, this time, crying. I think it'll be a little while before he 'jumps' that hole again. Other than that little mishap, he is doing awesome on the two-wheeler.

That's it for now.