The Hairs

We visited the Wightman’s Farm/Apple Orchard in Morristown, NJ on Sunday, October 5th for a couple of hours of family fun. The pictures are available on family photo site (link to Wightman’s Farm pictures). Some samples from the day:

Riley has a couple of new moves to share with the world:

• Turning around in circles
• Stomping (either in play or frustration - I have seen both)

His feet are growing as well - he now wears a size 7 shoe. No need to get any ideas about buying shoes - he’ll be out of these soon as well.

In the event there was ANY doubt on Riley’s favorite color then it is as clear as a blue sky - yes, it is yellow. He has clutched two yellow crayons in his right hand and will not give them up for anything. He also is becoming more vocal when he does not get what he wants. This includes putting his yellow crayons away.

Perhaps the terrible two’s are not too far away!

Not a huge amount of change since the last time I posted. The new behaviors:

• He “stomps” on occasion. I don’t know if this describes it well but he methodically walks with v shaped/legs apart style when exhibiting this behavior.
• He dances in place on occasion as well.
• The truck book is full of “zhu zhus”. Perhaps he is imitating the sound of trucks?
• He terrorizes the cats more than ever. He has become a bit more forceful and thinks they are for boxing. Needless to say, the cat have learned to move out of the way quickly.
• Perhaps accidentally, he is dribbling a soccer ball.
• He loves feeding himself with his spoon. Unfortunately, he turns it upside down and this means the big usually receives more of the food than he does.
• He is a picky eater at home. Apparently, this is not an issue at daycare. Go figure…

OK, so after dumping some of the observations, he has changed a bit.

Oh, and if you’re reading this sister, happy birthday!

A few weeks ago, Danielle dragged me out to the local bike shop to have our bike’s tuned and to purchase a “Riley chariot” that she could pull on her bike. Unfortunately, Riley’s not a huge fan of it, and even less so of his helmet. So… I have started biking on my own. The first week was pretty rough. At most I could do 7 miles with some hills. Last week, my stamina and strength started to build and this week - well - wow!

Today’s ride was great. It was the first time I was on a bike for more than an hour in.. Hell.. I don’t even know how long it’s been. At the least, 4 years and at the most 12 years. My ride today started with a gentle wind in my face (felt like a slap occasionally…) and an ascent of ~ 280 FT over a long twisty hill of ~ 1.5 miles.

Once I got to the top, I took a few spins around a half mile loop to catch my breath and then caught some more oxygen on the descent. The fastest I have hit on the way down is ~ 36-38 MPH and it feels great after the ascent!

The remainder of the trip was on a couple of hilly areas but mostly flat land between Mountainside and Cranford, NJ. The complete trip (with the loopy loops not counted on the Google Map/GMap link was 14.4 miles @ 1 hour and 5 minutes. Considering I hit the big hill today, I was very happy with an average of 13.8 MPH over that period. Besides, I have a cross country bike and not a thin tired road/race bike. Sure, I have slicks but the extra rubber (2.1″) does cause some friction…

My neighbor, Dave, is looking into getting a bike. He’s an avid runner - 7:15 miles - so I’m sure he will be able to keep up if not pace us..

As far as Danielle goes - she’s more into running and has started doing this with and without Riley. I’ve given some thought to running again - used to run competitive cross country in high school. However, I’m a bit more bursty and not a long distance type. When running 6 KM competitions, I would pace as long as possible and then sprint the last 100-200 yards. Since then, I’ve come to understand I probably have more fast twitch than slow twitch muscle fibers. We’ll see!