It’s too bad it wasn’t me that had a triathlon Saturday. It would have been fun to casually drop into every conversation “yes, I just got out of the ICU and now I’m here to do this triathlon”. Faced with only being able to say “I got out of the ICU and now I’m here to watch this triathlon”, I just kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t nearly as cool.

Toby, however, should have been saying “I spent the night before last sitting awake with my wife in the hospital and now I’m doing a triathlon.” There might have been a special medal in it. I mean…besides the medal he got for finishing and the besides the bronze division medal he didn’t stick around to collect.

Dropping him off to set up his transition area. Mmmm he looks nice, right?

He's so glad to be out of the water he can't stop grinning.

Finishing strong.

Way to run it in!

Imagine you’re sitting on your bed reading a book and minding your own business. Then suddenly a deranged and giddy (and also naked) viking jumps through the doorway. He’s wielding an ax and wearing a horned helmet. He says he fights dragons. Oh, and bears.

Now imagine he’s four.

Thank goodness I have at least five cameras.

If the picture’s not enough, try the video.

Robbie, standing on a step-ladder: “Mom, I can see over you.”

“That’s because you’re taller right now.”

“Yeah, but we’re still the same age.”

When we had Robbie I knew there would be days in my future when a boy would come running up to me, gleefully sporting a suit made of mud and ask to have his picture taken. I just didn’t know at the time that the “boy” would be my husband.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include this little gem. It set Robbie to shouting for all the “8-am-on-a-Saturday-morning” neighborhood to hear “Dad’s got a poopy butt!”. Over and over and over.

And where was the real little boy during this whole mudapalooza?

Clean as a whistle.

We’ve all  heard about the poor over-scheduled American child, haven’t we? He has no time for imaginitve play, no downtime, no time for homework. Well I’m  hear to tell you about the poor overscheduled American mom. She has no time to watch Glee, no time to play in her soap room, no time to even get her hair cut. And no time to blog.

Starting in late April we hit a perfect storm of teeball, a boost in project requests at Sakka Studio and a flurry of travel that left this poor blog abandoned.

Here’s the thirty second scoop on what’s happened lately.

• We went to Yellowstone for a long weekend
• I worked a lot
• We went to Oklahoma for four days
• I worked even more to catch up
• Robbie played a season of teeball that consisted largely of touching his head to the ground and eating dirt
• I did a ton of laundry to keep the teeball uniform ready game after game
• Robbie went on his first real backpacking trip with Toby – hiking 1.5 miles with his own pack, uphill and not whining. We’re pretty sure that’s a world record and as soon as we figure out what we did right we’re going to patent it, sell it, and retire.
• I let the laundry get ahead of me, it collapsed on us, trapping the entire family until paramedics arrived on the scene and, using the jaws of life, freed us.
• Robbie went (and I chaperoned) on an awesome field trip to the fire station that included a ride on the top of the hose truck and meeting a fireman whose ears were burned off. As soon as I figure out what I did that prevented Robbie from saying/doing something embarrassing I am going to patent it, sell it and retire.
• I made batch after batch of lotions, lip balms, scrubs, salts and lotion bars to test various formulations.
• I worked some more.
• In the last week of teeball, which was also the last week of school, I missed all the festivities of both by contracting the worst case of strep I’ve ever had, complete with uncontrollable vomiting (which felt so cool and soothing on my throat). I begged for death but Toby refused to accommodate me and instead nursed me back to health.
• I lost seven pounds due to said illness but made sure to gain three back right away by baking myself a little batch of brownies (and a pizza for dessert) as soon as I could swallow.