Once a year I take a giant spill while on my morning run. It is always in the same spot. This is the spot as viewed by me while sitting on my ass on the concrete:

The spot is about half a mile south of my house. I only run south if I’m feeling too tired for the hills of the park, if I feel like a change of scenery, or if it’s too early to be out on the loop alone. Normally, I trip over a tree root, or a raised bit of pavement, but last week I fell TWICE. Once over that damn root; the second time I was dragging so badly I tripped over the bloody curb. So now I’m sporting bloody knuckles (first fall) and banged up knees (second). I fell flat onto my face and was even showing off a rather attractive swollen lip. Really, I’m quite the sight for sore eyes. I just have to be thankful I didn’t knock out my tooth (it did hurt)… then I’d have fit in really well at Lake Chelan, where we spent this past weekend, our final one here in Washington State.
Clearly I need to get myself some more sleep. I tried explaining this to Sidney at five am while she was yelling me about the placement of her blanket, or to M as he was leaving for NY for a couple of days. I even tried having a conversation with the “to-d0” list that I typed into my phone. I consult this list obsessively, but do not seem to be shortening it at all.
So far, nothing has worked. The list grows and I look more and more like Rocky Balboa.
I did knock off one item on the list: Today I took the boys to the pediatrician for their (somewhat belated) 9 and 11 year checkups.
These are not the feet you want to show to the pediatrician:

Sadly, they actually look cleaner in this picture that they do in real life.
After a several year hiatus, it was time for Bennett to get some shots. Three of them. So he hid:

At least his feet were clean.
On the way home, we talked about the move to NYC and one of them said: “I want to go to Madison Square Garden and pee on the grass. Just so I can say I’ve done it.” I explained that the Garden isn’t really a garden.
But I just want to get there.. in one piece.