chollaball.net

Dara invited us to join her, Troy and James for camping and hiking. The camping was too much effort, but we got up early and deep into Rim Country by 9:15. Dara said it would be a hike down to a river with friends, dogs, and ‘a few steep spots‘.  If Facebook only had a icon, it would have been all over her message. No worries, none at all — the Cballs represent. Beckie hauled Alana in the carrier, along with Dara hauling her 3-yr old McKenna. G hiked all 45 minutes and ~600 feet down, through rockfall and broken trees, along the river, and back up again. After two times freelancing and thumping herself on rocks, she began listening to exactly what i said and followed my path precisely. She dropped into steep down-climbs saying to herself ‘just like rock climbing class…just like rock climbing class‘. If I wasn’t proud enough of her strength and saavy when we got down to the river, I was blown away when she swam behind me through a 10 yard pool along the trail. The way out I could hardly pace her, her fatigue offset by excitement and empowerment rocketing back up the wall.

Alana and McKenna almost thinking about being friends

stupid slow-focusing auto-focus, this pic was so kewl

dogs can’t walk on skinny log crossings

back up the wall!

kids passing out allowed adult time

be Johnny Rotten!!

More awesome pics over on James’ site.

sunset bike ride to the grocery store for treats

1st day of school

2nd day of school

GrowAZ is a newish grassrootsy collective of bike geeks who think acting with one voice might get us somewhere. Black Power and whatnot. The park manager of McDowell Mtn Park is extremely bike friendly, recognizing the majority of daily traffic in the park are bikes. The PT got built last year, tucked into a corner where no one but other bikers go. Ahh…fences make for good neighbors, even the equestrians kvelled when i paraded G out at a planning meeting and said how free-riding is family-friendly. Props to LateDropBob and others who have been working hard to make things happen with powers-that-be.  Today was our first rebuild workday, and hopefully the first of several cool features added to the Park. The Park matched our 20 volunteers with a water supply and a loader.

First samples on the backside were gnariffic. I can’t wait to try the jump line after it dries.

Kiefer and G alternated riding and DVDs. Somewhere is Kila who wandered around and about and under the EZup for 4 hrs. and look, its my laptop sitting right where i left it! Thanks KennyB for saving it, and building your S-curve.

KIDDIE BIKE PORN BELOW!
you’ve been warned…

This summer has been the hardest i know. So many large projects and siteeations, no willpower to get up or get out. The only place I refused to yield is getting the kids to the pool.This likely contributes to my beatendownednessocity.

Its like this: we are soon heading to my nephew’s bar mitzvah, and G asked if we would go talk to god. No baby, no. I don’t want you  to ruin the service, or it to ruin you. You and Alana and Mommy will dress up and give hugs pre-service, then vanish to the playroom for 1.5 hours while Daddy takes 4 slugs of God to the chest for the family.*

That is like taking kids to the pool.

I enter my zen, my dragon, my prePainCave, getting ready for clawing and ripping and 4-footed kicks in the junk, meatbombs crashing from out of the sky, kickboards cracking me under the chin.

Its amazing i haven’t bitten my tongue or had a seizure this summer.

I love my kids. really. keep repeating

We play fighting games, wrestling, basketball and racing. G is a long-haired dress-wearing tomboy. She took out 4 boys at a Pump It Up party, 3 of them twice. Each day she asks to do laps, cause she likes ice cream, and she likes challenging herself, and seeing her progress.  I know this about her, she does not yet.

Alana is a completely different swimmer from barely a month ago. No fear of the water, comfortable under the surface for 5 seconds at a time in ways G never was. She  discovered goggles. The first time she freaked out and howled til i stuffed her under water and screamed ‘LOOK!!!!’ Two eyes were full moons, trying to find teenytiny words to describe what she saw. On the way home i bought her a pair of her own. Now she can’t jump in fast enough, learning to cannonball, and yesterday for the first time embracing the autonomy of water wings. I embraced the 20% fresh bandwidth in my throughput.

They usually crap out after about an hour. So I can timebox my suffering, and force myself to keep smiling and playing their games. I get raked down the back, a knotted quad, and choke held. How the fuck did that only take a minute and a half!!!! A minute and a fucking half! Its like sex-time.

*no offense to my religious friends, who if you are reading know and respect our differences

G grew up during the last moon. I realized it when i realized i was comfortable sending her alone to the the ladies locker room before her climbing class. She’d run purposefully down the hall, and return with clean hands and an empty bladder and an eagerness to impress me and scamper up the rock wall. Its the first I’ve let her out of my sight with no other adult around to tag in.

On recent rides, she’ll roll a mile straight downhill, unafraid, in control, stopping at intersections, just having fun. A fragrance of consequence finds me, i imagine her crossing up her wheel and sanding her beautiful face clean off skidding down Bell Road. There is nothing I can do but talk to her once she gets up to speed. Its going to happen eventually, i must work with it.

Last week we were practicing addition, writing it out, counting numbers and fingers. She didn’t understand 2+1 vs 21. A week later she was playing with my phone, seeing numbers, counting, reading, saying 19 is 1 and 9; her largest cognitive leap in a long long time.  Maybe ever, just riding along on the way to the gym.

This summer she’s been in a school&camp program, and spends the day with other 5s and 6s she’s known over a year, going on field trips and working on projects. She hasn’t brought her blankie to school in days. She just up’n decided it was time to leave it at home. She still sleeps with it every night.

Fridays are Water Day. Its a new experience sending her to school packing a suit and water shoes and a towel and something for Show & Tell. For her to remember it all, use it all, and get herself dry are a trifecta i could not imagine a year ago. Last Friday she made it clear she wanted to be ready the moment Water Day began. Its 108, i appreciate her enthusiasm. She wore her suit under her surf shirt, under her dress, with her flipflops. If she’d had a field trip that day she’d have had her Field Trip shirt on too. We had to run back upstairs on the way out so she could get a simple hair band instead of a scrunchy, which stays wet all day.

Each weekend comes round, and I tick it off: not going to Flag, not riding 6 Shooter, not exploring the high country. Going to a birthday party, going to the pool, going to the zoo. Is it acceptance, or numbness, that I mostly care not and only want to be with my kids? They are beautiful, and I can not be away from them without feeling incomplete, vulnerable, terrified.  I took them to the pool twice after work this week. Twice for Alana, actually, while G began rock climbing classes at the gym.

I read about the Mighty Mud Mania, and our plan for this weekend began.  The pictures and descriptions explain the details, fed G’s stoke. But Alana is complex, her enthusiasm builds slowly, so used to getting drug along, drug out of her comfort zone, always eyeing a defensible position.  As we expected, Alana warmed up slowly to the mud, preferring the safe comfort of walls around her. After a few hours, she rallied, and ended  as filthy as the other kids.

G suffered no such hesitation, only the minimum age requirement to run the large obstacle course.  We worked through that too.

Me: G, how old are you?
G: 5
Me: G, how old are you?
G: 7, Daddy

Some kids crept through the obstacle course, timid in body and mind. G smoked the older kids in her heat, sprinted end-to-end. I had not doubts. The biggest challenge was keeping her from redlining while waiting in line.

We needed to run her around, until the race started

she is on the far right, the one blowing up the field

After some time at home, snacks and a nap, we followed through on a promise of a kitten and headed to the Animal Shelter.

Well, not a kitten, those got flushed by a (shitbag)coworker, so with heavy hearts we vowed to save another life. We hoped to find an adult who would otherwise soon be gassed, but this guy at 9 months fit our needs of a male who would not threaten Turtle.

G named him Cybro. How she pulled that name out of her ass I do not know. She forgot it several times, but I kept reminding her, cause it is so much more unique than Max or Stripe, just like her. We goto pick him up in 2 days after his nards are whacked. Today we went to PetSmart to buy him litter and toys.

saw this out the porch window! Alana skipped the tricycle and the strider bike. Almost a year ahead of G

night-blooming cactus

a trip to the movies to see Rio!

I was tossing my empties from a dog ride in the dumpster at Westworld, when I found it filled with the better part of someone’s backyard.  Some people in Scottsdale have never heard of the Goodwill store.

I did not go out with the intention of dumpster-diving, but I can’t resist something free and in good shape. Ok, not good shape, but good-enough shape to have an adventure. So I stashed some toys, and formulated a plan.

This is about the 6th time Kila and I have picked the girls up from school this way. Our new ritual. We’ve heretofore gone home via the Hill Park and the Library, giving the kids a chance to raise hell before settling in for the night.

They love it, immediately look for snacks, and wonder what adventure is in store

I showed them the map, and said we’d start at the fountain where Kila gets water. G knew what I meant, and almost new how to get there from school. Alana played along.

1.5 mile approach

consulting the map at the Westworld TH.

across the parking lot, down between the hills, under a tree…

someone else out playing with their kids

A cool guy named Fish built a pump track in his backyard. Thursdays are party nights. I finally visited when shopping for the Malice, to try some other bikes and a different track. The crowd is mostly from Cactus Bikes near Somo, since Fish is a mechanic there and lives in the neighborhood. Cactus is a premiere shop, but somewhere i’ve never shopped, with Rage just down the street.  I knew a bunch of the regulars from here and there, more of a DH\FR crowd that I rarely ride with, but I showed up with a 6 pack and fit right in. I’m good like that.

The Fishbowl is very different from the big moves at Rage. Its all about rhythm and speed, so everything is smaller except for one bowl at the end, which is setup to allow 2 options and passing.

Fish is a great guy, with a 4-yr old boy, and if you get there early before the party turns much more adult, its a kid-fest, with a track that is kid friendly and a yard full of kid toys!

The first time I brought G, I brought Fish a bottle of Bacardi Anejo. Welcoming  a new friend into the party is one thing, letting me bring my monster is an entirely different level of hosting.

She did at least 50 laps, undismayed by a couple hard falls, blowing everyone’s minds with her energy and her stoke. Hi I’m chollaball, and this is Hurricane G. When she wasn’t knocking out laps on a track suited to tinyRiders, she was playing with new children and new toys. I had to drag her away. She kept asking for a week when we could return. I couldn’t wait either. Everyone there had kids, and kept eyes out for all the others, and yielded to all riders smaller than 4 feet. At moments I’d jump on and maybe get 3 good laps before some child or another would break all rules of traffic safety, but there was so much happiness and laughter no one minded.

By her second visit she was a pro, stayed out of the big bowl, and barely fell. There was a birthday party being held, and G sang and had cake and rode with a new friend. I got some tips for getting over the front wheel and looking at the exit as soon as i enter a turn. Excellent times.

it was on the tip of my tongue, til i decided ‘milestonamonstrous!’ would suffice.

Pre (slightly-Post)-Emptive Warning: This post is lame and will suck.

no photos, and prose that is mostly weary and in food coma. It was too milestonamonstrous to not throw down on paper while fresh. Some days being father to these kids is a blessing from angels.

Alana rode her goofy plastic tricycle more-or-less to The Eagle.

You: WTF is The Eagle?
Me: Dude, you don’t have the handshake.

Those little legs have figured out how to steer and pedal. They kept going, kept climbing, kept rolling downhill. G rode the strider bike, while Alana huffed with jealousy and fretted with temerity, but knew exactly our destination.

At The Eagle, Alana climbed up the walls, and the rock piles, while G spotted her. And when she wanted to keep climbing and G wanted to ride the trike, she got bent but I just kept repeating ‘share share share‘ til her breathing quieted and she seemed to get it. G was a great big sister by saying thank you and giving me no grief about giving it up after a lap.

and giving a demo!

we rode up the hill. i forget things. we kept riding home, 2 beautiful little girls following me and each other, our tinyPeloton, herded by our dog. G sessioned the tiny slope into the parking lot, Alana wanted to try. Alana wanted to switch bikes. And she was on the strider bike and coasting down gravity and getting it. Use your feet, roll roll. Sharing, sessioning, trading back and forth my 2 great little girls, sessioning some more.

Alana finally crapped out and took the gimme in the jogging stroller the last 200 yards home.