Ben loves to bike hard down the driveway, get some good speed, then practice braking on a dime. He loves to make long skid marks then have me measure them. So he's learning that 6 is bigger than five, and even remembered learning about parallel lines (something I randomly pointed out weeks ago at a doctor's office where the railing on the staircase provided a good example). Can you see all the skid marks in this picture? At one point he asked me "Mom, are these two parallel?" and I was floored! What a good boy. Sometimes he shows remarkable recall. Other times he shows no good sense whatsoever...

Today is one of those days I am thankful the boys are safely tucked in bed. My job is done. Do you ever have days where it seems like random injury is around the corner at every turn? And the kids happen to be fragile, too, so every random injury is a big deal? Today was one of those days. Sam complained of a splinter, then pulled it out. Next he complained of a sore foot, but it was totally fine to walk on minutes before. Then his ear hurt (which does bear some merit – I think he has a mild case of swimmer’s ear which has been off and on for a few days and we’ll have to remedy this week). Then at my dear friend’s house checking on her new chicken hatchlings (more of Merlin’s progeny!) Ben took a slipper to the cornea in a freak accident. Then we’re out mountain biking (you’re thinking – huh? on a freak accident day?) – because we all really wanted to go (Dave was at work so couldn’t call us off the trail). We went to a trail we knew, but forgot how many hills there were. Things look different when you’re rolling. So at one point when I was coaching Sam on the finer points of shifting just in time to keep momentum up a hill, then standing up to keep going, Ben decided he was going to check out what we were doing. I’d told him to stay put in no uncertain terms, but he went rogue. Next thing I knew I looked up and there he was merrily rolling off-trail down a 20% grade right toward a tree, with no real look of concern. Probably thinking he can brake any time. I threw myself before the runaway train and caught him. I might possibly have had some expletives of disbelief, too. I was more growling than talking because I didn’t want the nice homeowners to hear me, so thankfully probably the kids had no real idea what I was saying. Everyone is fine, but this just goes to show my daredevil is capable of just about anything, even blinded in one eye. (His eye is fine – the cornea abrasion is either gone or fine – he recovered in minutes. He’s dramatic, though, so sometimes it’s very hard to distinguish fact from near-fact.)

Anyway…I just dearly love those boys but sometimes I feel like I hardly know them! My tough guy Sam who never complains about a thing – ever – truly never complains – actually complained about three things today. So I said, hey, you know what, maybe just do a bathtime FYI for me…which he remembered and did tonight. He goes “Hey, mom, I’m not complaining, but just so you know, my ear is bothering me a bit.” Perfect! Well done my friend. I asked where it was on a scale of 1-10 (which the boys can reliably do and have been doing so for years) and he said a 2 or 3. I gave him some Advil and a promise to follow it up on Monday with the doc. He is fine. Good boy. Say a few prayers for my friends – ask their guardian angels to keep just a tad bit closer watch on them perhaps?

Tonight as they were putting jammies on they asked me to “make me talk, Mom!” Which means – move their chins and talk in a funny voice as if I’m them, talking. Weird stories come to mind and it’s very cathartic for all of us for me to make them say horrendous things about their ogre of a mom and end up laughing…somehow in Sam’s story (as I was moving his chin and he was smiling) he became a jelly donut. “Why am I biking up this crazy hill, mom, when all I really want is to be a donut, yeah, a donut, filled with jelly and smiling up at people from my white box!”  You get the idea…