Hitting the Trail

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Today Lydia is 6 weeks old, and so it’s time for me to be more active. We decided to take the kids down the trail for a bike ride tonight after dinner. We told the kids to hurry up and eat their dinner so we could go nowhere. The kids were confused by that and asked where we were going. I said “Nowhere.” They asked if we were going to a store. Kyle explained that that is somewhere, and I again told them we are going nowhere. They started getting annoying and I told them that if they didn’t watch it we wouldn’t be going anywhere, which is different than going nowhere. Haha we had them so confused! Really if you’ve ever driven to our house you know what I mean by going nowhere. We live in the middle of nowhere. So to go on a bike ride down the trail with no destination in mind, just to go as far as we feel is far enough, we were going nowhere.

Kyle and most of the kids got on their bikes, but since I felt that Lydia was too small for my bike trailer, I put her and Chloe in the double stroller and I got to walk instead of ride. We did really good with getting to the trail. The kids all stayed in a line on their bikes behind Kyle and I finished up the procession with the stroller (and besides I wanted to be able to SEE Dinah. We got to the trail, and Kyle told the older kids that they could go as far as they wanted as fast as they wanted. I was kind of bugged that they took off and then we couldn’t see any of them. I stayed behind to stay with Jeremy and Dinah who are a lot slower than the others. They just kept riding and I just kept on walking and it seemed like forever before we saw the older kids, and Kyle heading back in our direction. When they passed us is when the little kids turned around to head back home. I feel like we went WAY too far out for my first time out since Lydia was born. My legs were shaking and I had a walking cramp in the side of my tummy, but I knew I had to keep walking in order to get home. Kyle and the older kids disappeared again, and I was left behind to make sure the little ones made it safely back, and due to my shaky legs I was going slower than the little kids could ride and they were getting way ahead of me too. I saw Dinah go down one of the ramps along the trail and I think she went down at an angle because she went down and just kept on going and she ended up in the street. I called to her to get out of the street a few times, but I didn’t actually freak out about it until I saw some cars coming in her direction. Then I started SCREAMING to her. I tried to run, but my legs were already pushed to their limit. Kyle and the older kids were nowhere to be seen. I felt like I couldn’t go fast enough to get to her while pushing the stroller, so I left the stroller on the trail and tried to run to Dinah. I think I saw the cars slow down, and I got to her and pulled her out of the street. Then I had to go back to get the stroller, and then we continued on our way home. Kyle rode back to find us and I told him that I was mad that they took off, and I told him about Dinah being in the street, and that my legs are just done. So he made the older kids wait for us to catch up so we could leave the trail and go through the neighborhood back to the house together.

6 Weeks

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Tomorrow Lydia will be six weeks old so today we had a visit with Valerie. Lydia weighed in at 8lbs 9oz, but she was wearing a diaper and her shirt so maybe 8lb 8oz without. She’s exclusively bottle fed now, which still makes me sad, but seeing her grow does make me happy.

That looks funny

Tyra has a wiggly tooth. Every night at bedtime she has been claiming that tonight is the night that it’s going to come out. Kyle tries to yank it and it doesn’t budge. Of course Tyra is a very over dramatic girl and is totally dramatizing over this wiggly tooth. Tonight she looks like this:

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Excuse the messy face, we were eating dinner when she discovered that she could push her tooth out like that. Then a few minutes later she took a bite and it popped out.

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The value of learning to WORK

We have started this summer off with teaching Ethan to work! I remember by the time I was his age I could fold laundry, do dishes, change diapers, and make simple meals (like spaghetti) all by myself. I also started mowing the lawn at a pretty young age too. So today I decided to have Ethan ‘help’ me mow the lawn. Really I did most of the work, and having him in front of me made it harder for me to push the mower, and I did trip on his feet several times as we were going, but the boy needs to learn sometime.

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I have decided to make Ethan my personal shadow this summer, which means that if I’m folding laundry he is learning to fold laundry. If I’m doing dishes he is learning how to do dishes and so on. So we’ll see how that goes. 🙂