Where has our summer gone? I can't believe that school starts in two weeks and that I am starting to go into the classroom tomorrow. It is all bittersweet! I love, love, love, staying home with my kiddos and doing EVERYTHING with them, but I also adore my job and am excited for a new class of 4th graders! Before I started this post I glanced through my summer photo album on my computer. It has been a FULL summer. Trip to Portland, race series (with Carter running too), more races, camping, fishing, berry picking, dinners with friends, swim lessons, gymnastics, harvesting produce of our own, running and/or bike riding daily with kids, fair, Farmers' Markets, dinners on the patio, trips to the river, just to name a few.
At this point, you're probably just wanting me to take the blog in the direction of the title. I have actually never watched this show FEAR FACTOR, but I think I have the jist of it being a TV show where people are asked to do things normally not deemed appropriate. Two of these incidents take place on our patio where we like to enjoy the majority of our dinners. For one, Miles is super messy and it makes clean-up much easier, and two mommy and daddy like to enjoy their beverages as the kids run around on the lawn and play. One evening we had gotten home from the Fort Jones Farmers' Market. We had attended the market with both kids, and it was very hot. As payment, Bradley bought the boys some ice cream and as we sat down on the patio and all enjoyed our treats. Miles decided to go play on one of his Little Tikes cars. All of the sudden we heard him screaming and witnessed hornets attacking his mouth. The pictures below don't do him justice, but he had never gotten stung before and he swelled up quite nicely. I decided to take him to the ER just because he had never been stung before. I gave him some Benadryl before we left and it turned out he was just fine, but it was scary. The car ended up in the dumpster, but no worries, there is another one.
About a week later we were enjoying some grilled meat and sticky rice on the patio. As usual, Miles had a trail of food around him. I watched him bend down to pick up some sticky rice (we do actually keep a very clean patio) and put it in his mouth. I suddenly realized that what he had just ingested did not look like sticky rice. I calmly chased him down, and did the finger swipe (which he adamantly tried to fight), only to swipe out a WHOLE FROG that was still alive. The little bugger would have eaten the whole thing, had I not used my cat like reflexes to dissuade him. GROSS! The worst part is that we don't have a picture of the frog.
Another week later, I challenged my fear of heights to participate in the first annual Mt. Shasta Volcano Mud Run. This was a 3.2 mile course that climbed over 1,600 feet in about .75 miles with 10 obstacles along the way. I was extremely nervous at the start because I don't have the best coordination and I really have a fear of heights, but I ended up LOVING the race and placing 2nd woman overall out of about 150 or so women. ( I honestly think I was first overall and that the 2nd heat timing system was screwy, as do others, but whatever).
I guess the moral of the story is that fear is individualized and defeatable. Miles had no fear of eating a frog and Carter won't even try to touch one. I had a fear of heights and conquered it with a competitive tone ringing in my ears.
Here's to the next two weeks of summer, may they continue to give us wonderful family memories.
