Must go to bed soon as I'm getting up tomorrow (Saturday!) at 5 something in time to be picked up at 6. A friend and I are off on a bike ride with our group. This one is a 'cane ride' - as in a ride predominantly through sugar cane farms, with the emphasis on fitness and distance rather than on technical mountain biking skills. Depending on where we ride, we get a very different biking experience. Thursday afternoon I had my best ride ever. Switchbacks (zig-zagging paths up steep ascents), rivers, rocks, drop-offs, bridges. The adrenaline rush is incredible, and I come home and sort of glow for about 24 hours after. It's like all my adult life I've been waiting for this, and I just didn't know it. Although I've been keen to get into bikes for a few years, I had no idea what mountain biking would actually entail. I think I am someone who has a real need for physical thrill and challenge. When I was a child, sailing provided me with a somewhat similar experience, but that ended when I left school (other than the odd day casual sailing with the family). The biking is filling a gap I hadn't managed to identify before.
My euphoric mood from yesterday's bike ride came to a sudden halt this afternoon when Stephen, at a party, took rather a nasty fall on his own bike ('bike' = black plastic toddler's push-along bike) at a birthday party. The house has a large gently sloping tarred drive along the front, and I idly noticed that Stevie was having fun scooting along it. Five seconds later I looked again to see him hurtling down the other (incredibly long, and much steeper) section of the driveway, curving down towards the bottom of the garden. He must have rounded the corner and just kept going. It just never occurred to me that he would do that. Stupid of me. I started running, scattering glass of coke and keys as I went, but there was no way I could reach him in time, and he landed hard on the tar. Grazed and bruised arm, shoulder, and cheek, and a nasty little cut above the eye. I need to watch him more carefully. He is so independent and capable I can forget he is so little and inexperienced still. I am neurotically careful with Bad Stuff like Swimming Pools and Cars, but tend to be a bit too relaxed with other things. These things happen to kids, but this incident was totally avoidable if I'd just been keeping a better eye on him. Anyway, got to just learn from it and move on, I guess. Visit to the clinic, magic glue on his cut (so much less traumatic than stiches), and an x-ray just to check the wrist (no fractures, huge relief), lollipop. No major damage I suppose. I hope he is not scared of his bike now!
Life is incredibly full and busy. Lots of good stuff, but really, really busy.
We spent several hours last Saturday at Lauren's first gymnastic 'levels' competition. It was fun, and quite a lot more formal than the casual ones she has attended in the past. Different gyms from all over the province sent gymnasts. It was fun to see all the teams in their club colours. We were all thrilled when she received a fifth place (out of 13 in her section), and we were also quite surprised at the result, as she got a disappointing score on beam due to her omitting a couple of steps in the routine. This meant she got into the medals (six medals for each section) and got to stand up with the other medal winners.
Other than gymnastics twice a week, Lauren also still does ballet (also twice a week), and recently joined a Cubs group, which meets on Tuesday evenings. Add to this three school extra-murals (hockey, sewing club, and an academic extension group), and recorder and choir, also at school, and she is a very busy little person. Seems to thrive on it though, and fortunately homework is currently something she can dash off without much trouble in between all of this. A couple of weeks ago, she joined me on her first 20ish km bike ride - one of the events at the Karkloof Classic MTB event. The ride was several km longer than planned - an enormous swarm of bees caused the ride to be detoured along unprepared tracks strewn with logs and other obstacles. I was so proud of how well she did. Peter did the 10km ride with Robyn and they also had fun. I'm hoping Robyn will soon feel confident enough to come on the slightly longer rides.
Showing posts with label accidents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accidents. Show all posts
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Shattering End to the Day
I am typing this on Peter's new baby laptop. It measures about 22 by 16 cm and is designed for elves perhaps, or people with very thin spindly fingers.
One has to try to avoid requiring the backspace, shift or tab keys, otherwise - and oops it just happened again - one tends to get totally the wrong key resulting in disconcerting window behaviour such as one's entire blog post window disappearing (for instance).
At least I am blogging, and a mere three days after the last post!
Today was exhausting, despite the fact that I hardly saw the children.
Today was the day to finally get (finally to get, if you are predisposed to find split infinitives offensive), the Tow Bar and Bike Rack, which has been on the agenda for approximately 360 days (do the maths) so that we can carry all of us, and our stuff, and our bikes in One Car! Repeatedly having to take two cars on holiday and on bike riding excursions has lost its novelty value. The only thing going for it is that the kids and I can take off in the morning and Peter can join us 8 hours later when he finishes off 'writing a few emails for people at work'.
I left home at 11.30 this morning on Tow Bar Mission and returned 5.30. Fortunately I decided to leave Stephen at home with his siblings and grandparents otherwise both of us would have been very tired and miserable by the end of the day. Tow Bar Place is not close and is not speedy. However, I am now the proud owner of a smart new tow bar and four-bike bike rack. Tow Bar Guy was so proud of his efforts I didn't have the heart to tell him we will soon need to carry five bikes and ultimately six. (I am working on convincing Peter to get a baby carrier for Stephen to ride on the back with one of us; once we have that there'll be no reason not to buy a second adult bike - the fifth bike.)
During the long wait I
Came home and started to help Lauren plan tomorrow's design technology project, and since we are about to hit the First of Spring, the project is to construct a flower in a container from waste materials. Think cardboard tubes, coloured paper, crepe paper, balloons, yoghurt pot, coffee tins...
Got a huge shock when, just after saying goodbye to Peter's parents, there was a crash and a scream from the other end of the house. It was Robyn screaming Mom! Mom! and I thought the worse for a moment (Stephen, bath, etc) and then I remembered of course he wasn't in the bath and we all raced up the passage to find Stephen on the floor, Robyn in the shower, a mountain of broken glass everywhere and Robyn holding the remains of the shattered shower door.
Very, very frightening.
Stephen must have pushed it very hard. He was sitting on the bathroom floor while she showered. One connector was broken and it made the door swing in the wrong direction and hit the wall.
The shower door is made from that safety glass which sort of crumbles, so only minor cuts fortunately (just a scratch on Stephen) but it could easily have been so much worse had Robyn not caught the remains of the door. I am so proud of how well she did. She said she knew she had to catch it (cutting herself in the process) to stop it falling on him.
One has to try to avoid requiring the backspace, shift or tab keys, otherwise - and oops it just happened again - one tends to get totally the wrong key resulting in disconcerting window behaviour such as one's entire blog post window disappearing (for instance).
At least I am blogging, and a mere three days after the last post!
Today was exhausting, despite the fact that I hardly saw the children.
Today was the day to finally get (finally to get, if you are predisposed to find split infinitives offensive), the Tow Bar and Bike Rack, which has been on the agenda for approximately 360 days (do the maths) so that we can carry all of us, and our stuff, and our bikes in One Car! Repeatedly having to take two cars on holiday and on bike riding excursions has lost its novelty value. The only thing going for it is that the kids and I can take off in the morning and Peter can join us 8 hours later when he finishes off 'writing a few emails for people at work'.
I left home at 11.30 this morning on Tow Bar Mission and returned 5.30. Fortunately I decided to leave Stephen at home with his siblings and grandparents otherwise both of us would have been very tired and miserable by the end of the day. Tow Bar Place is not close and is not speedy. However, I am now the proud owner of a smart new tow bar and four-bike bike rack. Tow Bar Guy was so proud of his efforts I didn't have the heart to tell him we will soon need to carry five bikes and ultimately six. (I am working on convincing Peter to get a baby carrier for Stephen to ride on the back with one of us; once we have that there'll be no reason not to buy a second adult bike - the fifth bike.)
During the long wait I
- watched a bit of daytime TV; evidently xhosa daytime tv is no less mindless than its english counterpart
- read some of my new library book (my resolve to put reading on hold so as to catch up on other things lasted about 72 hours; I was unable to hold out when taking the kids to the library; pathetic I know but just imagine visiting a library and not coming out with a book for yourself....)
- got picked up and taken to lunch by Peter who took pity on my plight (I think he got the hint I wanted to be fetched when I said 'please can you come and fetch me').
- bought Stevie a birthday present
- bought myself some new summer clothes
Came home and started to help Lauren plan tomorrow's design technology project, and since we are about to hit the First of Spring, the project is to construct a flower in a container from waste materials. Think cardboard tubes, coloured paper, crepe paper, balloons, yoghurt pot, coffee tins...
Got a huge shock when, just after saying goodbye to Peter's parents, there was a crash and a scream from the other end of the house. It was Robyn screaming Mom! Mom! and I thought the worse for a moment (Stephen, bath, etc) and then I remembered of course he wasn't in the bath and we all raced up the passage to find Stephen on the floor, Robyn in the shower, a mountain of broken glass everywhere and Robyn holding the remains of the shattered shower door.
Very, very frightening.
Stephen must have pushed it very hard. He was sitting on the bathroom floor while she showered. One connector was broken and it made the door swing in the wrong direction and hit the wall.
The shower door is made from that safety glass which sort of crumbles, so only minor cuts fortunately (just a scratch on Stephen) but it could easily have been so much worse had Robyn not caught the remains of the door. I am so proud of how well she did. She said she knew she had to catch it (cutting herself in the process) to stop it falling on him.
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