Functional but seldom used stuff

There are some things that are really helpful when you need it, but rarely get used: a car jack, Christmas tree, camping equipment, etc. But in the end of the day, they still take up space. Space is at a premium in a small home. Things that take up space remind me that I'm collecting stuff. I don't know what's worse, the fact that I'm collecting it or the reminder that it's there.

What I need, in addition to my teleportation ability, is the ability to fold reality to put these things out of sight. A storage room of requirement if you will. More seasonal items, less horcruxes. But alas, I am just a lowly muggle.

Ah well.

Decision Number Three

There are so many decisions that are hard. You usually feel better one way or another when it's made. 

I learned it from you!

Now, this post won't make any sense unless you've seen this old anti-drug PSA from the 80's.

Today, Alice was being quite silly and pretending to fall down over and over.
Me: Where did you learn to be silly from?
Alice: I learned it from you! I learned how to be silly from you daddy. You're my silliest daddy in whole world.

*tear of happiness*

Your father's light saber

Mommy-Wan Kenobi: I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Mommy-Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade like your father did.

Isaac Skywalker: THAT?

Mommy-Wan Kenobi: Your father's light saber. This is the weapon of a Silly Daddy. Not as clumsy or random as a pew-pew hand; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand coffees, the Silly Daddies were the guardians of Silliness and Tickling in the Old Neighbourhood. Before the dark times... before the thunderstorm.

Today Isaac picked up my light saber while I was out bbq'ing. He picked it up and starts saying "whomm... whoom... ssshhh". I may have taught him that at some point, but not with my light saber (which is current broken!).

I can't help it if the apples doesn't fall far from the tree.

Spinning plates

Tonight I lost my temper. I didn't yell. I didn't hit. I just took away some toys and then comforted some tears. It was a controlled loss of temper. I was fair. Shortly Alice was happy again.

But I still feel that I failed.

I feel like I should be redirecting, not taking away. I should be asking for my Little Helper rather than ordering or asking. I shouldn't be looking at my phone (really, I've got to fix that). I should be making more games. I feel I should somehow be doing more. The problem is that I'm human and can't be an ideal. In my head I don't expect anything more than human from myself, but my heart is disappointed every time I miss the mark.

With the two kids I feel like I'm spinning plates. Moving between them both and keeping them on track. Sort of failing them both at the same time, but equally. You know, to be fair.

Tonight after picking them up from daycare but before supper I sat on the floor as I often do and asked Isaac to bring over a book. He did, then turned around and sat down in my lap with a thump. A book or 2 later I had a kid on each thigh. At one point Alice was sitting in my lap and Isaac sitting in hers. I think that on the 7th or 8th book I said I must start dinner. As typically happens, now they are too hungry to wait for anything to book and they need food now. I think that the only way I can make them a normal meal is if I start at 4. And that they only get cold plain toast with 3 raisins.

*sigh* Time to go to bed. I'm having a hard time reading the words I'm typing. Please forgive the lack of proof reading.

Am I being irresponsible?

I'm quite happy of our yuba cargo bike purchase. I think that it will be wonderful for the family. At some point it won't just be a weekend bike - we can use it for pick up and drop off of the kids. However every time I talk to my father-in-law he mentions about being worried about being on the streets with the kids on board.

Am I worried? Ya, sort of. I'm worried about me too though.

Am I so worried that I won't take them on non-paths / bike lanes? I'm not sure. This would effectively isolate us from the core.

I feel we have to balance the risks. Balance the time together. Balance the time doing things we are happy doing.

Am I happy to drive around in the van? Maybe not happy, but definitely comfortable.

I don't know. Unless the city puts in more paths, not just painting a line on the road or forcing parking cars through a bike lane, I won't be ever relaxed with the kids with me. To be fair, I'm not exactly relaxed when in the van either. I guess that "parent mode" just puts you constantly scanning for dangers. Oie.

Coming up on 10 years biking to work

I've been reading a lot about biking lately. Mostly it's the group of people that want biking to be safer. That's awesome. Reading about them makes me go "Wow, they are so hardcore! I'm not like that." That got me wondering: how long have I been biking into work (season permitting). Apparently it's almost ten years. Crazy.

This year there seems to be more people biking into work than I have even seen before. I totally attribute that to the bike lane, despite it being pretty short.

Maybe one year I'll even take up winter biking (new bike?). At this point it seems like it would be too dangerous. But apparently that's what I thought about biking downtown too...

Who knows. Maybe one day someone will look at me and think "man, he's so hardcore". More likely they'll just wonder where I got the funny hat.

Date-athlon

Today was another wonderful date day. We dropped off the kids at daycare, bike to a hidden lake / pond for some swimming, then off for a fancy lunch after a brief stop to change. That's the type of triathlons we do: bike, swim, eat. Boo ya.

It was a very good day. :-D

Third Life Crisis

Well, as I've discussed before, we got a new bike, our Yuba Mundo. I rode it home from the shop yesterday but have not taken the kids out in it. Maybe if there's time I can adjust it for the both of us and we can ride up and down the street. I assume that I'll ride in the pannier. Kids, or at least Alice, can test it out on the weekend.

The whole point is that it's a long tail bike, but boy is that beast ever long. I'm not sure how easy or possible it is to get it through the person door of the garage. But overall I had a fine time riding it home on the relive flat with no load. If anything, it's geared too low - I couldn't go as fast as I wanted at times. However I suspect that I'll soon be very happy with that gearing when kids + stuff is loaded.

I'm calling this a "third life crisis" because 1) I hope / plan to live to be 100-ish and 2) normally I would have never spent that much money on a bike. But I'm looking at it as an investment in our current and near future happiness. Hopefully it will also instill a love of exercise and the outdoors in our kids too. We'll see.

One side effect of this and posting the info on twitter is that I'm discovering a community of bike enthusiasts in town that I didn't realize. Now I don't expect that we will go car free or become 4-season bikers, but it's cool to know (at least online) these people. It doesn't hurt that bikes seem to go hand-in-hand with a love of beer and food.

People are generally awesome. You just have to look.

Van bike!

I've always been a city person

I was thinking about this the other day: as long as I can remember I've been a "city person". I've loved biking, I've loved cars compared to trucks, I've loved being close to things. I've lived almost equal amounts of time in suburbia, county (middle of no-where) and "centrally" aka ~ 5km of downtown. I'll admit that the neighbourhood we're in is more like a suburb than Right Downtown, but close enough.

So far, by far, I've enjoyed being central. Sure, it may be because I'm happily married but maybe, just maybe, it's because I'm in the city that allows me to be happily married. (See what I did there?)

Annnyways. I'm really enjoying being city folk. I don't know what we'll do one day where we won't have a requirement to be close to downtown. Will we move out by a lake somewhere? Not sure. I like being around for festivals etc. Who knows what the future will bring.

Fun family day

Today was a good day. It started off with coffee and bacon. Then a bike adventure to a newly discovered park by Lansdown. Home with some sleepy children. Beer in the garden with my lovely wife. Outside play time with the kids. Now I'm sitting by the BBQ listening to some sausages cook.

Really, how much better can things get because this is pretty awesome. 

The minivan of bicycles

Okay. We did it. On a lovely Date Day where we went out for a great breakfast, followed by a tour of landsdown as they were setting up a farmers market, found some more awesome parks, the a great lunch, we did it. We bought a longtail cargo bike. 

I think that it's going to be great for the family but it's very much more than I have ever paid for a bike. I think all the bikes that I have ever owned combined would cost less than this bike. That part makes me feel guilty. 

But do you know what? It's going to be awesome. 

We are getting it early next week. Hopefully it will fulfill the ideas in my head that it would solve.