The Saga of the Bike

So last year, when I started riding bikes to work, I actually road a bike that I bought Dave for his birthday one year.  At the time, we had three bikes, Dave's, my mountain bike, and an old red hipster bike.  The old red hipster bike was an impulse buy at a garage sale in 2005 for about $10.  I didn't like ride it much, because the handlebars are very forward and very narrow.  And I always felt like I was on the verge of crashing into a pole.

That said, we bought the bike trailer and had it hooked up to the mountain bike (for Dave to tote Nico to school and home) when Dave's bike (re: my primary mode of transportation) was stolen.  It was shitty and I was annoyed.  And it forced me to reconsider old red hipster bike.  After a new seat and a tune up, and about a week riding around on it, I loved it.  The guys at the bike store were super cool about it- especially since they were like, "The manufacturer doesn't even exist anymore... and they made the size very weird".    Since its so anti cool, I was very aware of how hipster I was being riding the thing.  I didn't want to be one of those people wearing skinny jeans, a plaid shirt, and infinity scarf pour $$$ into this old bike.  The guys at my bike store got this.

Anyways... I got the bike tuned up in the fall and they said, that my tires were pretty far gone and that I should consider getting some new ones.  I was about 2 days away from putting Old Red up for the season, so I made note of their suggestion and went on with my life.  Well, when I got Old Red out for a ride, I ended up needing a new tube for the bike tire.  I got a friend to help me change it and she said, "You should get a new tire ASAP. Otherwise you're going to keep getting flats."  This was on a Wednesday.  I got a flat the next time I rode it, on Friday.

So, I took it to a ANOTHER bike shop and gave them the speel: "Its an old bike.  I've been told the wheels are not a standard size, so I'd like to know what to do about special ordering tires."  The guy who helped me (who liked like that dead-eyed mutt Todd on Breaking Bad) proceeded to pull tires down off the ceiling and attempt to put them on the bike.   Aaaaaand none of them fit. Even better?  To totally replace the wheels?  $100.  Dollars.  EACH.  Seriously?  That is almost half what I paid for my first car.

Much miscommunication ensued.  I finally got the bike back on Friday and have been anxious to get back to riding.  I rode to the gym on Saturday, which was cool.  Of course today's weather report would call for rain+gale force winds.  Of course it would.

 

Speaking of the gym, I have started the beginning olympic lifting class (OLY).  I'm not sure I will ever do it competitively.  I only started doing it because I felt like I could do CrossFit better if some of my technique was a scotch better.

Easter

Do I even blog anymore?
I know.  I know.  I wish there was some excuse that was better than, "Busy", but sadly, no.

Easter was fun.  We did the egg "hunt" in the our neighborhood park.  I say "hunt" because it wasn't so much a hunt as it was a "walk around and find only 4 eggs, because that is the limit that the park imposed so all the kids could get eggs."  Note to self, find an actual egg hunt next year.  Makes me miss those crazy egg hunts that the daycare used to put on.

Nico has this great thing he is doing with his face lately, mostly when he is in on the joke.  It's pretty funny.

It's  a half smile, but with his eyes glancing off to the side.  It's pretty great. He is also starting to *finally* get helpful when it comes to arts and crafts and cooking (except for the cracking of the eggs... he's got some more work to do in that arena.)  This is great, because this was the first year that dying eggs wasn't a major debacle.  Seriously, its a bit of a beat down when the kid knocks over the egg dye.  Yeah, Nico totally did that his first and second easters.

Finding eggs is starting to get pretty fun.  Totally a far cry from these days:


The week before easter, Nico's school was out for Spring Break, so he and Dave hung out.  There is some type of Lorax expedition down in the Loop, so Dave took Nico down to it.  Which is cool.

That day was funny because we were all at the chiropractor together (it's a long story).  But as we were leaving, Nico blew a kiss to the lady chiro doctor.  I don't even know what that was all about.  It was pretty funny though.

Score one for the parents!!

Okay, so I mentioned it last post, but I need to elaborate on it here: We may have turned the corner with Nico.

We did baby time largely standing on our heads.  He was a super easy baby- and my expectations were pretty low.  Plus, that first year really flew by.  But then when he got to be about 2.5- the shit kind of hit the fan (sorry, Nico honey, that is just how it was- I can't sugar coat it).  I think a big part of it is that he is clearly very smart and a scotch stubborn, so he'd sometimes get his mind set about something, and was not to be dissuaded.  So, we'd go from 0 to a meltdown in 5 seconds flat.  The worst is that Dave and I are super flexible about stuff.  Oh, we're out of beer?  That's okay.  I will drink something else.  Compare that to Nico.  Out of mac and cheese?  THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST!! I HATE MY LIFE.  I HATE YOU.  I HATE EVERYTHING. (He didnt say he hated everything, that was the tone of his fit).  Now imagine that every.single.time something doesn't go his way.  HOLY BEAT DOWN CENTRAL.

It's been ramping up for the last couple of months, but was really apparent on the trip.  He is mellowing out.  And he's growing up.  So now, when something doesn't go his way, he's okay.  Out of mac and cheese?  That's alright dude, he'll just have some PBJ.  No big deal.  This is all fine and grand, but I haven't even mentioned the best part.

He does stuff that we ask him to do- without fussing or fighting it.  And he is starting to use "Yes M'am" and "No M'am", "Please" and "Thank You" without being asked. Brilliant.  Its awesome.  The best part is that we have been able to do this largely without threatening him or putting him in time out or other such measures.  Parenting FTW!!

Been around the world...

We had a fantastic trip to Florida.  Seriously- it was just what we needed.

We left late on Wednesday night (after I taught), but we settled into the drive quite nicely.  Nico went to sleep right away and I dozed till Indianopolis, where I took over for Dave, who was quite tired. I got us through to Nashville over night (in terrible rain) and Dave took over.  We pulled into Tallahassee late on Thursday to stay the night with G and LJ, (Nico's good friends from Creative Preschool).  I was a little nervous that they would be awkward- like suddenly they would think, "Why did we hang out so much together back in the day?  You're lame!"

But my fears were unfounded.  In about 45 seconds, they had picked up exactly where they'd left off.  Which was fantastic.  Nico was a scotch bummed when we left the next day to head down to Ft. Myers Beach, which makes me think that they are still good friends after all.

We got to Ft. Myers Beach around mid afternoon.  My and Dad have a week in a time share on Ft. Myers Beach, at Spring Break, which is why we were that far south.  Once we got there, it took us about 20 minutes to get in the pool.  Seriously,we swam for probably 2 hours.  It was fantastic!!

We ended up doing some shelling on the beach and Granny made us smores (in a kitchen- weird).  Nico even entertained by singing his rendition of "Let it go" (from Frozen- which is just weird... normally he is pretty shy about things like that, with people who are not Dave and me).  Saturday morning, we checked out and headed over to Miami to see Dave's parents and Aunt Rosie.

We didn't do much there- except hang out and swim.  Grandma and Grandpa got Nico a toy heliocopter, which required some playing.  I got sunburned at the beach.  We went to bed late and slept late.  It was really restful.  I am so glad that we got to go and the weather was nice.  

We left Monday night to head back.  Yeah, we ended up driving 4 days in a car, to stay 3, but I really liked the trip- mostly because I like road trips.  If we were on vacation, I wouldn't do much more than I did in the car (read, listen to music, talk with my boys, and eat snacks).  The car had XM radio- so we blasted Radio Margaritaville and The Bruce Springsteen channels pretty much the whole way.

I should add, that save the 10 minutes while we were leaving G and L's house and 10 minutes just outside of Louisville- Nico was an absolute gem.  Seriously... I am reluctant to breath mention of it... but we might have turned a corner, which I will talk about more later.