Friday, June 26, 2009

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Fairy Dust

This morning, on the deck, with the bag of potting soil...
A big creative mess! Little Girl apparently enjoys tossing dirt in the air, so as to ensure total coverage. When she decided to come inside, I had to funnel her straight to the bathroom for an early shower (unhappy) to get the finer dust from her scalp & hair. She had dirt down her back as if she'd suddenly grown a strip of dark downy fur.
Preschooler's fairy dust.

Couple of evenings ago, on the guest room/office futon, it was extraordinarily important that she put me to bed. Fiona did it thoroughly, complete with kisses on the forehead, the tucking in, removal of the hairpin, and a lengthy fairy tale story resplendent with a prince, Peter Pan, the Princess, the little Mermaid, the king, and "somesing happens...but then somesing didn't happen"....and a dragon.

I complete my first race of the season this past weekend. It was harder than I figured, I messed up my hydration & fueling (water n' food) pretty bad, got some heat stress, and cried 'cause I didn't hit my goal of a sub 2-hour race. I did see improvement with my bike pacing & especially swim pacing compared to my first sprint. Race Report here. After an insanely busy couple of weeks just before the race things have calmed down somewhat this week, inasmuch as one might say my life with Little Girl is "calm" as busy as we have become somehow.

Fiona started gymnastics again, in her third week today. Was visibly trembling with excitement when I told her she was going to get to attend again, could barely contain herself. Little friend Jack is in the same class, and while he sits there with some solemnity following instructions, Fiona is off bouncing about testing the young teachers' boundaries & limits with them trying to keep her on task. I think she's just so excited it's hard for her to keep on task!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Fairies, again?

We read the My Very Own Fairy Tale book twice today, once at naptime then again at bed time. I almost have the entire book memorized, my recitation lacks accuracy. (The book is about a group of fairies that need to crown a princess, they each bring a letter with a descriptive word that eventually spells out Fiona's full name, a company called IseeMe.) Here's some Amazing: as soon as I'm really starting to get complacent with Fiona's development something new happens, and everything is refreshed. It's always been that way, when I got used to her sitting she started crawling, used to her crawling she started walking,etc. Well, the fairy story has really been getting on my nerves lately, just 'cause I'm so tired of reading it. But tonight, Little Girl, decided that she wanted to identify each letter of her name in the text, she did so very successfully on every page. Wow. Suddenly the book was new again, I found a new zest in its reading.

One of my favorite girl friends came to visit this weekend. It was hard for Fiona to accept that Carrie wasn't here for her. I have to note how comforting it was to have a long time friend around, especially one that knows how to deal with small children so well. Carrie is a bright star. After she flew away on Sunday I realized that we didn't take any pictures at all. Too sad.

We've been spending lots of time with the MJJ crew, if I can find a way to post it, to follow is a video, priceless 3 year old view of the world. Fiona wandering with the camera while it's taking video, ending with a would-be shot of Jack.

In other news, I'm in the hunt for my perfect wetsuit, though it's obvious at this point I will have to rent own for my first race this weekend---hopefully I can find a place that has one available. This race sort of snuck up on me, my head was buried in organization & cleaning last week such that I didn't even attempt to look ahead until today. Essentially this sprint is a training exercise though, probably for transitions, I know I'll make some new personal best 'cause my training times have improved so drastically this past few months. I'm excited!

p.s. there was a beautiful, full arch rainbow today when we left the gym, Fiona said she wanted to to "that way, to tha end". :)

Thursday, June 11, 2009

one of my days this week

house cleaning/organizing first thing this morning
to tiny person gymnastics & short run
to home for food, refreshment, carseat transfer to Truck
to Miss M's for The Blankie's Ribbon repair
to far away recycling place for leaves that The Man never took back in November
to home to pick up branches galore from landlord "gardening" extravaganza this past weekend
to B-field branch recycling
to home to reload truck with branches that had been sitting in yard since before we moved in (must trip back to branch recycle later I guess)
then re-claiming cars, clean out plus-numerous wrappers, cig-boxes, energy drink bottles from The Man's truck---'cause that's love ;)
INto house to assess what work remains
after brief explosion at Little Girl for not moving fast enough getting plethora of toys back to her room---realize I'm hungry, I should eat very soon, otherwise there'll be a melt down
to computer to lament that I haven't trained much this week 'cause of all personal agenda, remind myself that this is a hobby and it's okay
on phone to arrange Little Girl care early tomorrow morning for my looong ride & brick

yeauh

next up, dinner, the real house clean, prep for tomorrow hopefully including a bike chain cleaning....
that's been the day
Be a Super Mom - Cloth Diaper with FuzziBunz diapers at Nurtured Family
Mama Bargains - Are you hooked yet?