Taking a break, folks.
It’s all be a little heavy, lately, to carry. I’m taking a break. I don’t know when I’ll be back.
Sorry.
See you soon.
KP
Archive for June, 2008
Open house at school yesterday, Peeps, which was AWESOME!
Wallace hit two big milestones.
TT’s new band plays the Green Mill Jazz Composer’s Collective this Sunday.
Tons and tons of stuff going on and I want to tell you all about it. Unfortunately everything requires all kinds of planning and work, so I have to do that first. Cross your fingers for a slow day sometime in the near future!
I don’t know what about this made me cry, but I found that about halfway through I had tears running down my face.
I wish it could be like this all the time. (Safe for work. Safe for kids)
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
I will, just as soon as I can, write up a full accounting of the weekend, Peeps. I want to say thank you to everyone who has emailed and facebooked and generally all of you who are in the middle of your own madness and are taking the time to cheer us. You’re wonderful. I adore you.
Other things that I adore: Mayhem’s two boys in their Money Bs shirts.
OH MY GOD HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING CUTER THAN THOSE BOYS NO YOU HAVE NOT!
brb,
KP
Biked: 76 miles
Raised: 1,510 dollars
Destroyed Buttocks: 2
Result: Complete Success
More details plus pictuers later!
Thank you to all who donated and cheered us on! It was quite the weekend! I’m now going to go pass out if I can hobble that far!
xoxoxo
KP
The bags are packed, Peeps. The bikes are oiled** and have been tuned. We are ready to go and bike 35 miles on Saturday and 35 miles on Sunday for a total of 70 miles this weekend. It’s not the pain in the legs or the back or the feet I fear, it’s the pain in the ass. MAN does biking that far hurt if you have no butt chops. Not to mention the chafing!
At the same time, I am determined that this year we shall kick the ass of MS right up near the tailbone. If you have not yet donated, but were waiting for the perfect moment, now is it!
CLICK THE GRAPHIC TO DONATE!
Not sure if the cause is worthy? Permit me to point out that there is a significant chance that we will be biking through thunderstorms. That, I think, is worth five bucks.
There will be extensive entries when it’s all over all about the event! See you on Monday! See you on the flip side! And a great big scream-out THANK YOU to Kristina Marie Ackerman, Kate , MoVo, and all of you who have given so generously. You, as always, make up the core of the awesome bit of humanity. There aren’t many of you out there. You rock.
xoxoxoxo
KP
** I picked up my bike last night after its tune-up. I replaced the die caps with MORE die caps, which will undoubtedly be stolen again but man I could not resist. My bike is so cool. In fact, they wheeled my bike out and there was a large black man standing next to me. He nodded slightly and said, “Is that your bike?” I said yes and he flashed me a smile and said, “That is an awesome bike.” I felt so cool.
With my frequent use of the word “awesome” you might think I am making that up, but I am not.
I love my bike like PeeWee. I love it. Pray that she lives through the event!
KP
Last night we took Wallace to our town fair. In past years we’ve gone to the Italian-American festival, which is really funny given how completely and utterly English Wallace looks, and super-duper funny given the massive numbers of hispanic attendees. My boy is Sicilian, but you would never, ever guess it. Anyhow, at the IA festival there would be a few rides, tons of food booths (and rightly so), some stage acts and a shrine to Mary for the praying of, etc.
This festival is NOT like that festival. This festival has rides. Real ones. Out the wazoo. It has tons and tons of game booths. It has a gigantic stage and, god help us, carnival food. This festival is an exact replica of the festivals that my friends and I used to wait for anxiously every year in my tiny home town when we were kids.
Last year, when we took Wallace to the IA festival, he was much too young to ride any of the rides. We’d show up, look around, watch the game where the trained rat picks the winning color, and go home.
This year… oh, this year is what I’ve been waiting and waiting for. Wallace’s eyes lit up like Christmas trees. In a hot second he was practically frothing at the mouth to get on the rides.
His first ever all-by-himself ride was on the old 1940’s ride where the cars go round and round a center pole like a merry-go-round. Last night he drove the fire truck. I think we got some good cell phone pictures of it (curses my forgetting the camera!), but you should have seen him. He was so excited he nearly peeled right out of his skin!
Next we went on the bumper cars. He drove the car with dad in the passenger side and managed to smack into me a half a dozen times. When the ride was over his dad asked him if he liked it and he said, jumping up and down, “I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!”
The next one he picked required a step up in moxie. It was a ride that’s a series of fake air balloons and the ride goes around and around and up and down into the air. Kind of like the swing rides, only you sit in a air-balloon thingey. The first time we went up and came down he broke out into a huge grin and yelled, “THIS DOES NOT SCARE ME!”
After that, for his final ride, he picked…
The dragon roller coaster.
Holy crap. What happened to my baby? What happened to the kid that doesn’t like loud things, is terrified of sudden movements, and who has a deep fear of dragons?
His dad took him on the coaster and while Wallace had his fingers in his ears the whole time, he also had the world’s biggest friggin grin on his face, ever. He LOVED it.
After the roller coaster it was time to head home and he just fell apart. He was having so. much. fun.
We have promised to take our Big Kid back to the fair on Sunday with some more time and a chance to do a lot more riding. I can’t believe how adult he is now. It floors me. My baby rides rides by himself!
Segway….
This morning poor TT got yelled at by Wallace’s teachers. Apparently, when they came in from sprinkler day yesterday it took Wallace a shockingly long time to get himself dressed. The teacher reports that it took him 15+ minutes to get his socks on and he was frustrated and miserable by the end of it.
We have strict instructions to let him practice full-body self-dressing at home (We do! Except socks! Because socks are tricky!). Wallace has historically had trouble with fine motor skills. He’s far more intrested in biking and balancing and running and jumping then he is in holding a pencil or fiddling with buttons. He’s very well-spoken, but not fussed about rolling balls with playdough.
Anyhow, we has been admonished (again) that the helping of small people is not always helpful. Honestly, for folks who don’t do day care or preschool I seriously wonder how they make sure not to raise cave-dwelling baby-children. 75 to 80% of all instances when we moved Wallace to the next stage of development has been because a caregiver, used to this age bracket, looks at us with barely-concealed contempt and said, “He can do it by himself, mom and dad”.
It always feels crummy to find out that you haven’t actually been helping your kid by helping him.
Sorry, Wallace! That must have been totally friggin embarassing. I’m sorry. The socks are all you from now on, man!
Love,
Crummy Mummy
Well, the MS bike ride is this weekend, folks! It’s been quite the buildup (in real life, anyway) and I pick up my bike from its tune-up today. Here’s hoping she runs smoothly!
We’ve had some schedule change happen this weekend, so Wallace is going to be staying with MoVo and Uncle F from Saturday afternoon until Sunday evening. MoVo is like a sister to me, and he thinks of her as his aunt. They live down the block and Wallace has gone to sleep there many times, however this will be his first official all-night sleepover.
We have emergency plans in place if Wallace needs us. I can come home if it’s too much for him. I know that he will most likely not only be fine, but have a total blast. However, it’s going to be hard for me. His first ever sleep away! *maternal sob*
So this is a Weekend of Events. I’m kind of reeling from it all and I promise to deliver pictures and stories when it’s all over.
Wallace update: He is AWESEOME. What do you want? He just kicks ass. What an amazingly great kid I have.
Brain update: Back on meds. There has been some drama with them making me pretty sick. It’s a long story. I don’t want to talk about it. (for once!)
What then, do I have to tell you that is of any importance at all?
Because sometimes blog entries are so awesome they leave me gaping. This is one of them. (Safe for work)
