Author: Devona

Rob has elevated the content of our blog again, so I’m going to deflate it with this nice story of what you should never do.

I was supposed to run 8 miles this morning, but Elise is on a sleeping strike so I woke up moments before Rob had to leave for work. This obviously left no time for me to squeeze in even a shortened run. So instead, I decided to load up the bike trailer and my bike and take the girls on a long nap-time bike ride.

When ever I do my city errands on the bike I’m shouting back to Elise not to drift off between stops so I was certain it would take no time for her to zonk and I would get a good 90 minutes of biking on the trails before Olivia got bored. Well, I was so wrong. SOOOOOO wrong.

Elise didn’t fall asleep until after we had gone about 10 miles and she had cried for the last 3 of them. I kept thinking, “just a little farther and she’ll be out.” But no. I had promised Olivia that we’d see this long tunnel before we turned around, but there was no way I would have made it the next 3 miles before Elise totally freaked out so we headed home, defeated.

I kid you not, a mile and a half after I turned back for home Elise fell asleep, so I asked Liv if she still wanted to see the tunnel. “Yes!” she said, and so I turned around yet again.

We didn’t even make it back to the point where we turned around the first time and now Olivia was telling me that she wanted to go home because she was tired. AAHHHHH! Olivia’s beseaching me to turn around woke Elise back up leaving us with 10 miles of screaming until we could get back to the car.

To make matters worse, I had to stop the bike about every 5 minutes or so because Elise would pull Olivia’s hair in her anger, or Olivia would steal Elise’s water bottle. Or who knows what else they managed to think of to make me have to stop. At one point I was walking down the trail holding a sobbing Elise, walking my bike, which was dragging the empty trailer and being followed by a sobbing Olivia.

What had been carefully planned to take only 90 minutes turned into 3 hours of riding around like a spectacle. I was pitied, glared at, gawked at, and only once did anyone offer to help me. Not like there was anything anyone could have done.

The only thing that I could say I liked about that whole ordeal was when we passed 3 pregnant moms and their spouses riding on bikes in the opposite direction and I could see the look of horror on all of their faces as they thought, “OH! What are we getting ourselves into?!” Other than that I almost swore off biking for life. If the trailer hadn’t cost $250 I might have.

My Sister-in-Law has been inviting Olivia over on Tuesdays so that they can go to the pool. Today I left Elise with them as well and I got some errands taken care of. I never thought I’d enjoy having a day to myself as much as I do, and I never thought I’d feel as guilt-free for enjoying it. Maybe I won’t be a very good homeschooler after all!

I ran to the post office to get my passport updated. It is very frustrating to go through all this work and driving to discover that I could have just done the whole process through the mail since it is just a renewal and not a new application. Even more frustrating is discovering that I could have done it for free if I had done it within the first year after our wedding and name change. Today I wrote a check for $75 to the Department of Security, or something like that. It’s very nerve wracking to send all of that personal information through the mail. I got a delivery confirmation.

Then I stopped by a friend’s house for lunch and to drop off a gift for her new baby. We actually had some time to talk, since her little one was asleep and mine were splashing at the pool with Aunt Sarah.

Then I stopped back home to let the dog out before I went to pick up the girls and our tile for our new bathroom project was on the front porch. I had no idea what it was until I picked it up and brought it in. I just knew that the package was 100 pounds. It said so right on the shipping form. When Olivia found it later in the evening she asked if we could glue them to the wall in the bathroom today. Then she scattered the packing peanuts all over the floor. Nice.

We have been crazy-busy this year. When there is no baby in the house life can really speed up! Sometimes I miss the slow motion lifestyle of a baby, and then I remember how nice it is to get some sleep (some nights anyway).

The girls have been going to the pool a lot, thanks to aunt Sarah. And Rob has started running, too. I injured my IT band, so I’ve been doing about every exercise excluding running. Plus to save money on gas we bought a bike trailer which I have been using to do my short errands with the girls. They love it and so do I.

The garden is really in high gear now and this is Elise’s first experience with pulling something out of the dirt and eating it 5 minutes later. You’d think that fiber would help in potty-training, but alas it does not. Yesterday we ate the last three carrots from the first planting, the second group shouldn’t be mature for about 3 more weeks. We also began munching on the greenbeans, but unfortunately so have the Japanese Beatles.

I also made my first attempt at canning something from my garden. I have a TON, I repeat, TON of Hungarian Hot Peppers so I decided to pickle them to use as pizza toppings and give some away. Well, it didn’t work, The seal was no good. Maybe next time.