Big brother, little brother

Henry came into his room today where I was dressing Walter, and he had his arms full of baby toys. He dropped them on Walter letting him know that he brought them in just for him.

The three of us were poking around downtown observing the river which has taken over the entire river walk, parks, and is reaching for the bridges as well. It was so windy - Henry yelled out to his brother, "Baby Walter, hold on to your hat!" Very good advice.

Jesse James "Daze"

Posted by Kevin.......

It's amazing how quickly a whole lot of stuff goes through your mind when your crashing a bicycle at 20 miles per hour.

As I recall, a seemingly relaxed thought process occurred on a wet bridge at mile 58 of the 100 mile Jesse James Bike Tour:

• Oh man, Scott went down. Didn't he crash last month?
• Everyone is saying "Whoa whoa whooooo"
• EVERYONE is going down!
• I'm riding over Eric. I hope I don't hurt him.
• I'm going down.
  
• Is this going to damage my bike?

Okay. I'm not proud of that last one. But really, that bike is, like, THOUSANDS of dollars and I really don't want to break it, okay.

As I sat there, on top of Eric and his bike, I turned to him and said, "I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

Well.... that's not the FIRST thing I said. The first thing was "*&$@%ing DOG!!!!"

You see, there was this dog. He had just walked across a very wet wooden bridge and exited on our side of the paved trail as we approached that span. He was off the leash, with no owner in sight.

As our group of about 12 riders (riding two abreast) approached the bridge, several guys called out the dog ahead. The whole group smoothly began shifting to the left side of the trail.

I glanced down at the dog as I entered the wooden bridge, and looked up just in time to Scott disappear straight down, as if the bridge ended 6 feet short of the other side. Suddenly a cacophony of "WHOA, WHOA, WHOA...." rose up from the pack as riders disappeared straight to the ground.

Eric was in front of me and to my left. I veered to the right, but suddenly my front wheel went out from under me and was quickly replaced by a triathlete / psychologist in a blue bike jersey.

As I rode over Eric's bike, I came crashing down on top of him. (He is a surprisingly bony person.)

Note: Only later did I realize the wet wooden bridge surface, and not the dog, caused the crash. In fact, the dog was the reason I slowed down before the crash. So I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for cursing the Basset Hound. I hope he is reading this.

Anyway, it was about this moment I calmly took stock of my own condition. And by "calmly took stock" I mean started to gasp for air and feel a lot of pain.

Eric, covered in dirty tire marks, kept reassuring me that he was unhurt. As I limped to the other side of the bridge with my bike, I realized my right thigh did not hurt as bad as it did just moments ago. But I still couldn't catch my breath.

So I inhaled deeply and coughed.

The pain in my ribs was more of a "pressing a heavy blunt object into my side " than a sharp "help I'm being stabbed to death" feeling. (Although, in retrospect, I don't believe I've ever had either happen to me before.)

As I limped pathetically across the bridge, I noticed Chris and David were pretty beat up. They were near the front, beside and behind Scott. Both had damaged helmets and bloody, torn jerseys. Our team doctor was looking them over. (As a rule, we always ride with Dr. Mark for just this reason.)

Chris and David wisely decided to ride back up the bike path to meet with Dr. Mark's wife for a ride home.

Scott, Eric, Todd and Joe were dirty and a little beat up, but ready to press on to the finish. But about an hour later, I couldn't keep up with the group and rode at a leisurely 16 mph to the finish.

While I didn't break any ribs, there is a lot of swelling so there may be a crack there. It hurts too much to sneeze, and I'm popping Advil like M&Ms. Six weeks and I can start crashing my bike again.

Then again, I will be riding the Rawlands Tour Oct. 3rd.........

Henry

So, Henry decided to eat dinner whilst sitting upon on the dirty rug by our back door. We debated about it, and then I realized that I don't care where he eats if, in fact, he eats. So, yep, he ate, and in the middle of dinner he informed me that he "might be back in a minute".
"But Henny, you're eating. Where are you going?" I ask.
"Henny be right back, I told you I be right back." He says as he promptly gets up, walks across the room, and peers into the living room to look at Baby Walter in his swing.
"He's okay." He says as he turns around and appearing more at ease, returns to his dinner on the dirty rug...
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A typical conversation:
Henry: Mama, you feed Walter milk?
Me: Yep. Walter is hungry.
Henry: Walter hongy? Well, yes, he drink milk, Mama. I talking about youuuuu--.

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Henry and I dug up the last of the season's potatoes last night. Mosquitoes all over - we finally ran inside to cover up with deet-free citronella spray and ran back outside allowing only about 50 mosquitoes inside on our way out. Every potato brought about a squeal of excitement as he created a "tato" pile, and dug beside me with his red shovel.

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I'm downstairs doing work. Henry is upstairs hollering to someone to "Watch your fingers! Watch your fingers!" It's a bizarre thing to hear your words coming out of a 2 year old's mouth.