Thunderstorms and pouring down rain all day, every day, for what seems like a week now. Isn’t this why we left Seattle? I am waiting for the basement to flood, checking it hourly. There are cracks in the foundation, you can see stripes of the outside through them. Are there lares (household gods) of gutters? What could I give them as an offering, buckets of rustproof paint? The promise of biannual deleafing? There are inches-deep puddles in the yard and the patio is completely underwater. Maybe the koi pond I wanted isn’t so unrealistic, after all.

I like the rain and the cozy closed-in, hot cocoa feeling it brings, but the kids are nutso, and driving me there as well. The Biggie has been pretending to be the Wee One all day, crawling around and saying “HIYA!” This is fine, except when I’m trying to get the real Wee One down for a nap, and she keeps jerking awake to the sound of shuffle-shuffle-”HIYA” downstairs. Grrrr.

The Wee One would be walking now if she chose to, but has no patience for it. Why would she, when her legs-blurred supercrawl is faster than light? The Husband often remarks that her face must hurt, she smiles so much. There are not dimples, there are craters, black holes sucking all sunlight into the middles of her cheeks. I am savoring the baby chub while it lasts, because when this kid takes off, it’s going to be all muscle from there on out. I’m thinking wrestling, soccer--anything that will get her a scholarship.

The Biggie is, I hate to place on the record, going through a major whiner phase. She is probably just sick of hanging out with her domineering mother (“Do NOT paint the table with yogurt!”). I need to find her a preschool. (The preschool did implode after all, and we are out of luck for the fall.) All of my superkind, kid-centric attachment parenting techniques have no effect on The Whine. When it starts, my head whirls around like a top and veins start to bulge out of my neck. Maybe I’m just drinking too much coffee.

Sigh. Time to check the basement again.

The Biggie recently learned (sortof) how to tell jokes:

“Mama--MAMA! How did the King Salmon cross the road? HOW? Slither, slither, slither!”

“MAMA! How did the box cross the road? On a truck! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

The Best Birthday Present Ever

The night I turned eleven, my parents blindfolded me and told me to get into the back of the car. We cruised in the 18-foot Lincoln through the chill New England night. “Don’t look!” my mom said. “You know where we’re going, don’t you? She knows where we’re going,” she said to my dad. “No, I don’t!” I protested giddily.

We parked and I peeked. Bill and Andy’s bike shop. This was late December. “Well, you said you never got summer presents because your birthday was in the middle of winter.” (What a rude kid I was!) “We want to get you a ten-speed.” Shocked, I stumbled inside where we were greeted by a gentleman, possibly Bill or Andy. He steered us right over to a fleet of gleaming, impossibly fast-looking Raleighs. “This one looks about right.” It was. It was the most beautiful bike I had ever seen. Sparkling blue-gray, nice cushy saddle, sleek, skinny wheels. I think it cost a hundred and twenty dollars, an astronomical sum. I fell in love, we took it home.

I rode the next day, for hours and hours, past my dog who nearly broke his neck barking at me from the end of his rope, with mittens on in the icy air, around the block a thousand times. It was freedom and power I’d never known, like flying, like a carnival ride except I was the one making it go.

My dog got hit by a car three days later, on New Year’s Eve. My sister says I tried to kick the police officer who came to the door to tell us; I have no memory of it whatsoever. It was the first time I was depressed, and I didn’t know what to do with that sick, useless feeling. I just wanted to get away from it, like it would disappear if I went far enough, fast enough. I rode, and rode, until I started to feel better.

Now I know that’s what always works. I need exercise for my twitchy brain like I need food for my growling stomach. That’s why I did the triathlon, that’s why I get up at 6 a.m., sneak away from the babies, and run. I can’t bike for hours now because the wee one needs me, but when I do get away even for twenty minutes I get that same feeling of freedom from everything that binds me.

A few weeks ago the Husband of the Blog asked me what my inseam was, comparing it to his to mock my shortness, so I thought. Later that day he came home and pulled the tiniest road bike I’ve ever seen out of the back of the car. It’s white, with extra-small wheels so they don’t bump into the midget frame when I turn, and it weighs less than my baby.

It took me a while to figure out the “intuitive” shifting, and the seat leaves my nether regions whinging (“It’s what all the female racers use,” the guy at the shop said--well then! *Insert comment inappropriate for my family blog here.*), but when I’m in stride, on top of that big fat gear, it’s the same euphoria I remember from my eleventh birthday. And to be able to have that back, to be thirty with two kids, a penchant for migraines and a career crisis sniffing at my heels, but able to hop on and fly away for a while--why, that’s just priceless.

Thanks, hon. From the bottom of my jock-girl heart.

FYI

Yes, you can spell it "triathlon" OR "triathalon."

Also, yes, the period belongs INSIDE the quotation marks if the last word of the sentence is in quotes. I may not know a lot about editing, but this, I know.

Hiya, long time no blog! Much has been happening lately, much too much for my poor sleep-deprived neurons to handle. Here is a brief update:

Moved into the new house at the end of July, though construction still continued. Cursed self by joking with head contractor, "Heck, we've messed with every system in the house except the electric!" Two days later, was informed by an electrician that our GE breaker box was "crap." Was also informed that the Husband of the Blog would be attending a conference for a week, in South Africa. Dear, dear friends left town for various too-far-away states. Found out that the wee one has a slightly elevated lead level (one unit above normal); have spent most of waking time wiping her hands and removing foreign objects from her mouth ever since. Was called by the Health Dept. because of the lead, and though I explained that we have moved to a new environment which has been extensively renovated with lead removal a goal, they still want to come visit and check me out to make sure I'm not feeding her paint chip cocktails.

Oh yeah, and then there was this triathlon I was training for. The swim, which I had completed just two training sessions for, was first. Oddly, my awkward, flailing sidestroke did not place me near the front of the pack. There were three or four people (out of a couple hundred competing) behind me at the end of the swim, and when I got onto the bike I just started passing people. I was so far back, the first people I was passing looked like they hadn't ridden in years. They were literally weaving back and forth on the road, looking down at their gears in confusion. I say this not to disparage them, but to point out that I was BEHIND these folks, I was so damn slow in that swim. I kicked some booty on my sweet new bike (gift from the Husband of the Blog, who understands that diamonds are not THIS girl's best friend), and continued passing on the run. The knee condition I'd been coaxing into submission during all of the training finally reared its ugly head during the first mile of the run, but I gimped across the finish line in an hour and 52 minutes, which is about how long I was in hard labor with the wee one. Needless to say, the triathlon was a cakewalk in comparison.

Next year, an hour and a half, baby. Bring it on.