Alek, your dad and I just want to make sure we take the time to tell you how much we appreciate all your hard work and accomplishments. You have done an excellent job following your recent promotion to "toddler" and, in order to fend off grumpiness and dissatisfaction, we would like to indulge in some positive feedback.

Thank you for being so good about sleeping in the big bed. While this transition seemed to come a bit early, you insisted you were ready for it and you have gone on to prove yourself right. Occasionally you take advantage of your new-found freedom and independence, like getting out of bed to retrieve your water cup and then taking it back to bed with you, or turning on the light so you can play with your toys, or sleeping on the floor by the door just so we can hear you better when you call for us, but overall, your move to the bed has been a success. We were particularly proud when, one night, you even got back into bed yourself with your head on the pillow and pulled up the covers to tuck yourself in. (I bet you thought we were just ignoring you after all your pleas for "Mama bed! Mama kiss! Dada bed!") and didn't know that we were downstairs waiting for you to fall asleep - as we knew you could - so we could go check on you without interfering with this important learning process. After 10 minutes of quiet I went in and found you tucked right back in, and I DID kiss you goodnight again, just like you'd asked for.)

Your recent experiment with new and adorable ways to say the word "No" has been entertaining and heartwarming. We particularly enjoyed last week's phase, where you would draw out the word almost flirtatiously, while batting your eyes at us and trying not to giggle. "Alek, it's time for pajamas," one of us would say. To which we got, "Noooooooooooooooooooo" and a smile. And then you'd happily put on your pajamas. Sometimes. Regardless, it was very nice of you to balance the mixed message with such cuteness.

And finally, we were delighted with your amazing vocabulary expansion to include the long-neglected word "Yes." We could tell you were just as excited as we were when you finally were able to use it in an appropriate setting; to which we concluded, we just hadn't been asking the right questions all this time. (It turns out that the right question is, "Alek, do you want pizza for dinner?" To which dad got 10 minutes of "Yes! Yesssss! YES!") Whether it was a coincidence or not we can't say, but we couldn't help but notice your lack of throwing food on the floor at dinner that night, which we are also mighty grateful for.

In conclusion, you are

X Exceeding expectations
_ Meeting expectations
_ Not meeting expectations

in your new job capacity, and we look forward to many more years of satisfactory employment in the Frederick family. Also, we love you more than you can possibly imagine, and always will, through and through.

Love,

Mama and Dada

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to those we love.

I don't know how much time I'll have, so I'll be brief. As I write this, Alek is upstairs not taking a nap. After 30 minutes of listening to him bang around rearranging all his books, animals, and furniture, his basket of books is on top of his dresser, his toys are in the closet (which he knows how to open but hopefully won’t realize), and the light is unplugged (he knows how to turn that on, too, but so far we've convinced him that plugs are dangerous things and not for little boys - a ruse that might not last long). He's calling out with increasing volume "Mama, heater? Alek nap?" which could mean he's cold and wants the heater on, or may mean he's getting closer to the door so I can hear him better. I have no tricks left and no idea what to do if he realizes he can turn the doorknob and walk right out of his room. If you're reading this, it's probably not too late to send help.

Anyway, 2006 was a good year by most standards, and we are happy to have been able to share it with you all to various degrees, and for the most part not as often as we've wished! "Freather" has continued to be a creative outlet and impetus to keep our Fotki photos organized, and it has substituted nicely for the baby book that I've otherwise failed to update in 6 months. We realize it's been a little bit Alek-centric, but then again, so have our lives somehow - please bear with us for just a few more years, and eventually we will go back to talking about ourselves like all those other Blogs out there. Of course, there’s another baby on the way (due date April 16th), and I’m sure we won’t want her to feel like her big brother got more attention or photos or blog entries than she did. It’s going to be a long couple years and then some.

On the four-footed front, a new dog joined our household in May and has done nothing so far to inspire a name change from "Crazy Puppy", so CP it is, or "P" for short if you're Alek. CP is full of energy and heart at the expense of brain cells, reminiscent of the beloved yet insane "Marley" from "Marley & Me", and despite my numerous assertions that he absolutely HAD to go if he (peed on the carpet) (jumped up) (knocked over Alek) (tore up the yard) one more time, Erik has had the patience to turn him into an acceptable and even lovable pet. Bailey has learned to like having another dog to play with (rather, I should say "a dog" to play with, since I'm not sure Bailey realizes that he himself IS a dog), and it is only compared to CP's boundless energy that we realize Bailey is even beginning to slowly slow down - he's 10 now, but still a Persistent Manic Fetcher. Nimitz and AbbyLou continue their serene and routine lives, eating the same dry cereal day after day, barely interacting with the rest of the household, and maintaining a haughty sense of superiority throughout it all. What else do you expect from cats? As for the fish, they have been pretty much taking care of themselves, fortunately.

On the adult side of things, Erik is staying very busy with his business (Oak9) and still finding time to get on his bike, especially when he realizes his (unmarried) brother (who doesn’t have kids) is riding more often than he is. No ski trips this year, unfortunately, but there may be time for one with him and the Frederick men in 2007. I started a pediatric anesthesia fellowship at UNC in October, and will be finishing what will hopefully be my last year of “school”, so to speak, by next December. I went to two meetings this year, one for the sheer indulgence and fun of it (Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, conveniently held at Disney World – wee!) and one for more academic purposes (American Society of Anesthesiology, in Chicago, where my good friends from college Carey and David live). Both were the closest thing I’ve had to a vacation since . . . I don’t even want to think about when . . . . All of which makes me wonder: hmm, maybe Erik will take ME on a ski vacation some day . . . . .

And that was our 2006. I think Alek actually fell asleep up there, which is why this letter is longer than I led you to expect. Either that, or he’s stuck in the closet playing with his toys in the dark (but I’m not going to find out). We hope to be able to provide you with intermittent glimpses into our chaotic and mundane lives through the filter of “Freather.com”, which makes everything seem witty, exciting, and under control. (Really, don't laugh, that's what I was aiming for!)

Love,
Combined Entity Heather/BabyNumberTwo, Erik, Alek, Alek, and more Alek, Bailey, CP, Nimitz, AbbyLou, Fish

Alek's month in bullet-points

It seems like so much has happened since Alek was "Mr. Lady Bug", and it will be hard to capture even the essence of all his new accomplishments. Some of them sneak by us at first, but we usually catch on eventually - it only took me a day to realize that every time he said "La-li" he was really saying "Alek", for instance. Instead of the usual narrative form, I'm experimenting with a more condensed form of presenting the highlights of the past month. We hope that reader satisfaction will remain at it's current high level (as long as the grandparents keep tuning in, we could probably get away with anything).

Most exciting moments:

• Flew on airplane - not so fun at first, but definitely an adventure when all was said and done.


• Followed Dada down big, fast, slippery slide at the Marilla Elementary School playground - very fun at first, but bonked head at bottom. Still went back for more.


• New bedtime game: "Mama Fall", aka "Dada Fall," "Nana Fall", "Scott Fall", or whoever happens to be nearby. Involves taking leap-of-faith back-flip over the bed rail into hopefully awaiting arms.


• Transition to big-boy bed after coming home from Thanksgiving. Mostly a smooth transition, and probably more exciting for us than for Alek, but we're proud of him, nonetheless. We realized too late that he could already reach the door handle and, on a good day, open it, but there's no going back, is there?

New friends:

• Max! Max is just a month older than Alek and lives nearby; the boys have similar interests in long walks in the woods, tractors, and cheese sticks. Max and Alek are really starting to get used to each other; they've had some very successful "playdates" and are definitely progressing past that awkward getting-to-know-you stage of "playdating" and have even exchanged a few hugs (along with the obligatory germs).


• Piglet, Eeyore, and Bear, Oh My! My favorite toy for all of childhood was a 2.5 inch gray kitten; Alek has bonded with three super-sized stuffed toys that form his bedtime entourage. Fortunately, they double as pillows, and will probably be easier to lose than Thomas the kitten was.

New teeth:

• First molars almost all in (thanks to Grandpa Joe for identifying these); one more stubbornly taking it's time but is definitely on the way.


• Nothing more to report in this exciting category; we'll keep you posted.

New news. Eventually this sub-heading will have to be promoted to the same prominence that all of Alek's newsreports warrant, but for now, we'll just tack it on at the end.

• Official due date April 16th


• It looked like a girl on ultrasound - of course, this just means that it didn't look like a boy. Stay tuned; we'll find out eventually for sure.


• Second trimester going smoothly.


• Trying to teach Alek the new phrase " Baby Sister." No luck so far, despite the fact that he can say "Toothbrush", "Cheese Stick", "Dada's Computer", and "Moon Door" (= Sun Roof). There's time.

Miscellaneous news that we are equally thrilled about but unable to fit in any of the other categories:




• Also trying to teach Alek "Baby Cousin" - Cj & Dani to provide updates for this story line between now and June 30th.


• Erik has joined the wonderful world of Mac users; he is enjoying his new "Mac Book Pro" as an early Christmas present and has hardly let it out of his sight. All this from the man who promised never to let my Mac on his network because we were NOT going to be a "dual OS household." (That all changed after OS X, apparently.)

. . . watch out for bugs. Of course, lady bugs are generally considered among the most helpful of garden pests. They have even been known to throw out their own trash, pick up their blocks, and put their bibs in the laundry basket.

Happy Belated Halloween to All!

Grammie ("meemee" in Alek-speak) came for a few days ostensibly to help out while Heather was in Chicago for a conference. The truth is that she needed her Alek-fix like the rest of the Grandparents. And she wasn't disappointed. Half-way through her visit, Alek points to her car and says "meemee" and calls her name from the other room in between calls for Mama. We've been to Home Depot ("flower") and Costco ("pepper") and to the Eno ("water").

The new game of the day involves the greenhouse wherein Alek enters the greenhouse from the backdoor, requires Grammie to stay by the front door (BUT NOT TOUCH THE DOOR ITSELF) then opens the front door, runs at tremendous speed across the lawn, around the hemlock, then back up the path to the back door of the greenhouse again. Repeat 30 times and you get an idea of how the 30 minutes before dinner were spent tonight.

Finally, for the second day in a row, we had a pre-bath ritual. The diaper comes off, there is running back and forth in the bathroom, and then Alek gets in the shower. He opens the door and closes it a few times, then leans against the wall and pees in the drain. To the best of my knowledge, he's never seen anybody do this so it's a good bet that he does it because it seems like a good idea. Then I have to carry him into the bathtub so he doesn't track pee everywhere.

This daddy-business is fun.

Where Alek says things like "yellow", puts socks on his arms, has a bath without getting his hair wet and gets tall people to do his bidding.

In an effort to capture all the cuteness, we now own a video camera. Here's a sample from the first day. A note: Alek is covered up by Eyore the donkey in the first scene. Dinner was chicken quesodilla (he liked it) and his hair wasn't that dirty anyhow. His teeth were. Now I have to go to sleep to fortify for another day with prince humperdink.

We decided it was time to add a little science to our parenting style, so here's a quantitative and graphical view of Alek's achievements on the verbal scale. Of course, there's always a margin of error (since Alek moves so fast that we can't exactly determine both his position and his momentum, a la Heisenberg - when dealing with the vector of a toddler, there's always a little uncertainty). Specifically, we forgot to include "boat", "boot", "chair", "cracker", and "choo choo". Plus, though the B words are heavily represented in terms of the number of words he knows, a graph of his most frequently used and beloved words would clearly show "uh oh" at the top of the pile.

Along other lines, we were very proud of Alek for making it back onto the growth charts at his bonus 16 month pediatrician visit - he's over 21 pounds now, and solidly between the 5th and 10th percentiles.

Physically, he continues to enjoy climbing rooty trails, crossing muddy creeks, and going "Kerplunk" (a great game invented by Grandpa Joe, whereupon Alek falls from standing to sitting whenever Grandpa Joe holds his hands up and goes "Kerplunk!"), "Flop" (face first onto the bean bag), and "Bounce" (banging his head against the back of the couch).

Of course, science can't explain everything - like where Alek ever got the idea to put his bagel bits in his hair and call it a "Hat!" or how he cries like a banshee when you put away the piece of paper he'd lost interest in minutes ago, yet falls into a pinecone hard enough to leave a grid of welts on his leg and never makes a peep, or how his crooked toothy grin just lights up the whole room. Some of life's little mysteries aren't meant to be solved.

The first time we let Alek cry himself to sleep, as regular readers of this blog (I know you're out there, Mom) will recall, we sat through eleven minutes of eternal torture till he whimpered himself to sleep. All the child-rearing books would have you believe that once you pass this significant hurdle, the worst is over and you are on your way to peaceful bedtimes, secure in your parenting skills and your child's self-reliance. Well, I can tell you, these books lie. If they told you what the process was really like ("Let you child cry himself to sleep. Repeat ad infinitum. Resign yourself to months of crying at bedtime, no matter how reliable your bedtime routine, how soothing your bedtime lullaby, how soporific your bedtime story.") people would give up on the whole cry-it-out ("CIO") strategy and just cuddle their kids more, because really, they're going to cry anyway.

Well, that's what we've been pretty much telling ourselves. We fell off the wagon a couple months ago, probably, and started worrying that maybe Alek's crying at night was due to lack of cuddling at bedtime. Maybe he loved us SO much that if we held him just a few minutes longer, he'd feel fulfilled and sleep better. There were good nights and bad nights, and colds and ear infections to throw us off, and maybe sometimes it seemed like he really did need us a little bit more. And really, on average, he slept 12.5 hours a night so it was hard to complain. But before we knew it, we were back to crying at bedtime, cuddling at bedtime, and even more crying in the middle of the night. It only got worse.

Then there was last night - Erik and I spent 45 minutes arguing with each other while Alek screamed, trying to figure out who was sabotaging the bedtime routine more with our mutual inability to withhold affection from our child - who calms instantly if you sit with him in your arms when he wakes up crying in the middle of the night. It's like crack cocaine, I can only speculate, but nonetheless, intensely rewarding and addicting to be able to soothe the child you love simply by holding him. Who could resist? And yet it's the garden path, the slippery slope, the wagon of precipitous height. No matter the metaphor, we fell off it. Or so we thought. Then, last night I went in, finally, to just pick him up and lie with him until he stopped crying because it was going on 10 o'clock at that point and we were all exhausted. And he was standing up, soaking wet, in a puddle in his crib because his diaper had popped loose. Oops - that probably explained the crying of the preceding hour, except we were too busy arguing about who was doing what thing wrong to make him cry in order to figure it out.

So where does that leave us? Back where we started. At 6:49 tonight we put him down, standing up and crying in his crib. At 7:00, the crying stopped. Another eternal 11 minutes. If he cries again, as he inevitably does, we will be a unified front - a quick pat on the head to feel for fever, pat on the butt to feel for leaks, and kiss on the cheek to make us feel like we're actually doing something, but that's it. It should work like a charm. Unless he's still crying at minute twelve.

On the bright side, he's brilliant and beautiful and hilarious. A little mischievious (holds the fork over the floor at dinner, looks up and says "Uh oh!" and THEN drops it), a little precocious (made up his own sign for "glasses" - holds his fist up to his forehead like he's putting on or taking off a pair of glasses), but so darn cute, even when he's putting his feet on the dinner table for the umpteenth time and I'm trying to look stern while I secretly (or not so secretly) think it's just the cutest thing in the world. He says "eat" and "hot" and "hat" and "out", and "boo" (= blueberry) and "boon" (= spoon), and of course "mama", "dada", and "nana" (= banana - sorry, Nana) and "bee" (= Bailey) and "no! no!" (= CP) and "ow!!!" (= cat - we think this means "meow" and not because of AbbyLou's tendency to bite us). So we'll cut him some slack with the bedtime thing. He's earned it!

It's been a week and a half since Scott, Jody and I set out to ride the 2006 Off-Road Assault on Mt. Mitchell. In case you haven't heard of it, this race covers 64 miles and around 11,000 cumulative vertical feet of climbing. Or maybe 10,000 if you believe my heart rate monitor. Either way, it's hard.

This all started early this spring when either Jody or Scott said "Hey..." and that was about all he had to say before Scott had signed all of us up. This was the 7th running of the race and it had developed quite a following by now. There were epic stories available on the internet describing the perils of this downhill, the desperate misery felt at about mile 8 of a 9 mile climb up to the parkway and the elation felt by the folks who finished. No matter how long it took them.

So I was plenty scared. Enough that I put the race registration on the fridge to remind me to keep riding and don't eat the ice-cream. Also to remind Heather that any riding that I was doing was probably helping to ensure that I would survive the ordeal in one piece. So I set to training. Well, sort of. Here and there, i would ride as much as I could given the busy work schedule, carting the boy around, and household obligations. (Try not to laugh too hard, Heather!) I gradually worked up to 3-4 hour rides once or twice a week. I figured if I could ride to the halfway point without too much suffering, I could do twice that amount of riding in jagged mountains under race conditions. What an idiot.

What it came down to was two bits of advice. One from Mark - "Just keep your heart rate at 80% of your max" -- well two from Mark -- "Dont forget to lube your culo", and one from Jody - "It's just a ride." Well, I took every single bit of advice.

The race started late. The siren on the local cop car which was to escort us to the foothills from Old Fort went off at 8:20. All 389 or so riders were set into motion. Scott and Jody had wangled their way about 20 riders in front of me and it took me most of the next 20 minutes to catch up with them. As the race left the main road, it came to a gate where everybody had to dismount - wonderful of the race organizers to put a big metal gate in front of 389 people desperate to get by it. This gate led to Old NC 70. The former route over the continental divide, long since abandoned for I-40. It made a nice start to the race. We had ridden this section the Friday before the race as a piece of mental preparation for what was to come.

In retrospect, it was a good thing that I worked pretty hard to get near the front of that giant peloton before the real single track began. At the top of Old 70, the race took a left onto a paved road for 1/2 mile before veering left again to the "base" of the Kitsuma climb. This first section of climb consisted of 12 technical switchbacks which were all ride-able (as Jody proved two days before). This would be one of the most frustrating parts of the race for many to follow. Because there had been rain the night before centered pretty much on this mountain and because there were so many fresh, eager riders, on an extremely dangerous, technical, rooty, rocky steep downhill, there was lots of carnage.

I saw bottles, riders off the trail (none crying yet fortunately) and I even saw a saddle sitting in the middle of the trail sans bike. Apparently this rider finished the race. I'm not sure how... We would hear later that most of the people riding behind us wound up walking up and down Kitsuma the first time.

Yes the first time. A nasty feature of this race is that it doubles back on itself just for the sadistic purpose of doing Kitsuma twice. At least it was drier later in the day the second time I went down it.... But I get ahead of myself.

After I took a leak at the bottom of Kitsuma, and started on a snack, Jody caught up with me and we pretty much stuck together for the next 20 miles. The race carried us by the first aid station and my flawed memory of the course suggested that this was where the 9 mile dirt road climb to the parkway began. Needless to say that was wrong too. I forgot about the climb up the first third of Heartbreak Ridge. Thats the real name. Washed out dirt road, cross railroad track, climb a bit. Cross a creek. Push the bike up an extremely steep section of trail (except for Scott who rode it I think). After my mind emptied and I became at peace with the pace, we neared the top. Jody and I had been passing people left and right up until this point. We guessed that we were in the top 100 during the climb up Old NC 70. How many people we passed, who can guess. There was a technical descent down some switchbacks and some dude was trying to watch Jody's and my technique on them so he could figure them out. Except he was watching from in front of us... It was ok though since the downhill didn't last long and he kicked it up a bit as we came to the section I call "rolling lespedesia". The lespedesia had grown quite tall and close to the trail as a snake of single track ran down an old fire road. This went on for several tiring miles before coming to Aid station 2.

At station 2, a pair of very enthusiastic volunteers grabbed one bottle each from me. "Half and half gatorade/water please" to one. "Just water in the other" to the other. "Thanks Station 2!" I grabbed a nutra-grain bar and a couple potato chips. Chugged some water. Ate a couple salt pills. Jody paused to fill his camelbak and I figured he'd catch up. I didn't see him for another 20 miles. This was the base of the 9 mile climb from 1500' to the Blue Ridge Parkway (4000'). I just got into a rhythm. Granny gear. Sometimes I'd stand up to work the kinks out. Back in the Granny. The more the hill went on, the more riders I passed. Once in awhile someone would ask "how much further" as I passed slowly. I'd say "My heart rate monitor is telling me we're at 2800', so I'd say another 1200' of climbing." This had a negative effect on the morale of the questioner.

As I crested the climb, Aid station 3 came into view and I gobbled two PBJ triangles, grabbed a couple of orange slices and a random granola bar. At this point I was a little jaded that the hammer gel's advertised in the race flyer were not available. Oh well! Salt pill down the chute and into the big ring for the descent. This descent was a piece of a training ride we had done the day before. Except in our reading of the course we had ridden it backwards during our training. The biggest obstacle I had during this section was getting over the thought that this direction was harder than the direction that we had ridden the day before. I had noticed giant baby head gravel on the impending climb (which we had descended the day before) and was dreading navigating them in the opposite direction. It turned out to be just like any other gravel road climb. Long and gravelly. Somewhere in the middle of this climb, I stopped and lubed my butt again with a tube of Alek's vitamin A/D ointment. Heavenly. I offered it up to a couple of riders who passed me while I was doing this, but they declined. Shortly after that I passed them to remarks of "that must have really been some good chamois butter!"

The top of this climb was the Blue ridge parkway again and Aid station 4. Jody came in behind me as I was polishing off a couple more peanut butter sandwich pieces and searching desperately for something salty. I was really running low on electrolytes. Food was fine, but my salt content was LOW. I told Jody I was just going to ride slow. I got in another groove. It was about 2 miles and another 300 or so vertical feet to the hidden turn-off of the parkway to the top of the Heartbreak ridge trail (this time the top 2/3s all the way to the bottom). Immediately after the turn, there's a 200 meter hike a bike up a steep rocky, rutted trail to the top of the descent. As I was pushing up the hike-a-bike I got to talking with a local rider who was in comparable position - Mike from Biowheels. He was a local and rode this trail all the time. I was telling him how I was just riding and didn't know what my place was, etc. He said "friend, you're in the top 35 - you're in the race whether you want to be or not!" He proceeded to leave me in the dust on the INSANE descent of this knife-edge ridge. Consequences galore, my brain was free from thought and pain. I was so focused on keeping the bike on it's narrow margin of control. Then I had a though. That was probably my big mistake of the day. I was thinking that this descent is about 12 miles of the harriest singletrack in North Carolina - I'll be lucky to escape this without the mountain giving me something to remember her by. I swear it wasn't 200 yards later that a 4" pine tree reached out at me. I tried to get out of the way, but the way it works with your center of mass is this: you can move the bike and your middle, but the cost of this is moving your top the other direction. So I caught the tree with my shoulder instead of my bike and the rest of my body. I was launched forcibly from my bike and tumbled down the trail. I checked the collarbone and jumped back on. My fingers were cramping from holding the brakes. I probably would have been much faster if I weren't trying to stop all the time!

I finally rejoined the section of Heartbreak ridge we had ascended earlier and bombed down that to the aid station. Mike was nowhere to be seen. Jody was somewhere behind me on the mountain. I was hungry and thirsty. This is when I noticed that I didn't have my second water bottle which I had been carrying in my jersey pocket. The second critical bottle which was making the difference between hydration and dessication. I filled the bottle with 1/2 water/gatorade, grabbed some pretzels for the salt and another random granola bar. Took off. I was in for the second major navigational surprise of the day: a right turn up what seemed like a very long gravel road. I knew this road would take me to the base of Kitsuma (the peak is about 3200') and that Andrews Geyser where the aid station was lay at 1500'. I had one water bottle and some significant climbing to do. But it was the last major climb of the race, so my will fortified around the thought. I started passing riders who were bonking. "The fire is out in the engine room" as Paul Sherwin would say. I had nothing to offer them. I was out of salt pills and nearly out of water. At one point I noticed a rider gaining on me. He got to the railroad trestle about 100 yards behind me then he cracked too. I stopped looking around for awhile. Finally, I neared the top and a couple of girls who were watching the race said the top was just around the corner! The road joined with the paved road just before Kitsuma and I started to feel the desperate wane of my energy starting to gather force against my will.

At the Kitsuma parking lot I decided that I was just going to push the bike up the switch backs. And I did. Up the first one. Then I started to see the riders in front of me pushing and I was like no way in hell am I going to stand in that line. So I started riding them. I won't lie to you - It just about did me in to do it. I made just about every one after that first one. The thing you notice about Kitsuma the second time around is just how much you are not at the top of the mountain once you get up that first set of switch-backs. There's a steep winner-take-all, loser goes to the hospital drop down to the knife ridge, then a climb out of a saddle to a false summit then another climb up a few more will-sapping switchbacks before the real punishing begins in earnest. It was here that I met Mike again. It seems that I can climb and he can descend. When two such people finally meet at the top of a hill, guess who wins? It was a good thing I had a chance to enjoy this descent with fresh legs a couple of days before because this race would have ruined it for me otherwise. Nearing the bottom, with Mike long gone, I started to feel like I could finally make it. And with a descent place to boot! I slam it into the big-ring and start bombing the pavement back to Old-Fort. I missed a turn coming into town, but managed to navigate to the finish where I clocked a time of 6 hours, 33 minutes. Just 11 minutes behind my brother and 1 hour 25 minutes behind the winner. Good enough for 32nd place overall!

Having heeded the advice to keep my heartrate in a reasonable zone, I managed to avoid much of the suffering that comes with heartrates in the 180s for and extended period of time and still managed to clock a descent time. Maybe if the race had been 100 miles I could have beaten my brother, but I'm not sure. He's got a lot of gusto. I'm looking forward to doing it again next year!

I remember when we first brought Alek home, how I couldn't stop crying every time I thought about him going to kindergarten. I mean, everyone says that these years go by so fast, and yet, how can that be? They can't REALLY go by faster than the rest of life, can they? After all, it's still 1998, right? Oh, no, that's right - it's at least 2002. Or, maybe not . . . . good god, is it really 2006? How weird.

And is my baby really a toddler? That too was easy enough to ignore, until the inevitable happened . . . no, not walking; I was OK with that, I guess - granted, it was more trouble than we thought it would be, but still, babies are allowed to walk and still be babies. But babies don't get haircuts! Little BOYS get haircuts, maybe, but NOT babies. And the worst part is - I DID IT! I loved those little baby curls as much as anyone (except maybe Nana - she took it a little personally when they went away) but when I realized they were long enough for pigtails, I knew it was time.

All in all, it went better than we'd hoped. I cut off the first two inches from the back before I could think about what I was doing, then I called for Erik and told him simply "It had to be done". Somehow we finished the job, and were pretty happy with it considering I'd never cut anyone's hair with anything but clippers before. (As soon as he's old enough for that, watch out - baby buzz cut, coming up.) For now, we have nice relaxed layers and a gentle taper to his bangs that doesn't immediately cry out "I was cut by mommy!" And a boy who looks ready for kindergarten. Sniff.