A week in September

 

2 more stitches

Here's a quick rundown of the last week.

watching big brother out the screen door

Liam got dizzy on the swivel chair, crashed into the desk, and split his earlobe open. Will brought him in to Fairview Riverside and they refused to treat him - told Will to go to the ER - so we waited a few hours until our regular clinic opened. When I say regular...yeah, Liam is becoming a regular there. They stitched him up good as new, and he got to make the chair zoom up and down.

Poor Timmy has been pretty jealous of all the attention given to his brother. He has been saying that he's going to get a backpack and ride the bus to school. When the ear incident happened, he got desperate and bit Will. I figured this Friday (my first Friday off in a few weeks) would be a great chance to give TJ some one on one attention. We had a great day together, starting with breakfast at Ikea. As he was devouring his pancakes and lingonberry jam, a grandpa commended his appetite, said "little fellow, you eat like a Swede" and started talking to him in Swedish. Then we bought his Very Own Potty That No One Else Can Use Ever Not Even Liam. He put it in the back of the cart and sat on it all through the store, then used it for its intended purpose when we got home.

tomatoes transforming into sauce

Early last week the weather was really hot, and the kids got to run through the sprinkler one last time. Then it got suddenly cold, frost-warning cold. Everyone rushed to pick their tomatoes, and all over the neighborhood there were sheets over gardens. I got a half bushel of tomatoes from the market and made sauce to freeze. Peeling tomatoes is oddly, creepily satisfying, like peeling a sunburn.

I ran the 10K that I've been preparing for over the past 6 weeks or so. I ran the whole distance (6.2 miles) without stopping, and I didn't set any speed records, but it felt good just to finish. And I wasn't last. I was almost last. A group of coworkers, one having finished ahead of me and others preparing for a shorter race, were at the finish line to cheer me on.

My run inspired Liam to do a pretend race. Okay, who are we kidding? It wasn't really the run that inspired him, it was the part about getting treats at the finish line. Anyway, he went out with Will and ran around the block 3 times, which is a little over a mile. Now Will is getting ready for the TC 10 mile, and then a half marathon at the end of October.

Liam's mile - can you see his bib number pinned on?