The Big Leagues

Took Abigail climbing this weekend.

photo courtesy of Fatmarc

At home she’s practically running up her wall. After hearing some friends were going to be at the gym I figured we’d try it.

The gym’s a little different for her. First off it’s huge and it’s full of people. Kind of overwhelming.

I’d climb some, then help her climb some.

Rachael helped her too. (Don’t worry mom. Rachael works with super strong Thoroughbreds. Abigail’s in good hands.)

The starts were tricky. There’s not a lot of holds on the bottom 2′ of the wall. Once past that, she’d move right along, but then get too high.

At one point she looked over at the top-roping area and said she wanted to “use the strings.” Which is fine, but we need a harness first.

She wasn’t a fan of the chalk.

Said it was dusty.

So why do this? Why not ballet or something?

Ballet is fine. Any kind of dance or anything else for that matter is fine. I have no qualms with any of it. What I don’t want is discrimination (at least from me) for my daughters.

I don’t wish that I had sons. Boys or girls, either can do whatever they set their minds too. It’s my job to provide the opportunities that challenge them – safely.

I have no aspirations of professional climbers (honestly prefer they don’t take that route, but ultimately it’s not up to me) or anything else for that matter. I want them happy and capable to accept or reject challenges based on their experience and knowledge of their own capabilities, not because of someone else’s preconceived notions.

I start with climbing, canoeing, etc. because they’re what I know and I want to spend time with them doing the things I enjoy. Sounds trivial, but I’m amazed (saddened really) by the number of fathers that don’t do the things they know and like with their kids. (so many excuses, I’m busy, they’re too young, it’s their mothers job, etc.)

This won’t last forever. With school and friends, other influences will make there way into their lives. Hopefully what they’ve learned with me will somehow play into those influences helping them make the right choices for themselves.

And in the end that’s all it is. It’s just try and hope.

- b

Hearing Test

The Gallery’s broken. Not entirely, but I did something to make all the default images too small. They appear as broken images until you click on them.

Annoying. I barely have enough time to process the photos let alone fix the method of delivery.

Anyway. I’ve got tons of pictures. Pictures like these.

The Birth Center does an in home visit a few days after the birth. During that visit they do the standard hearing test, which doesn’t actually test if they can hear. It simply tests that they’re capable of hearing.

Huh?

It uses sonar or sonar like stuff to map the structure of the ear. An  ear which can hear has a standard mapping. It doesn’t rule out any kind of brain abnormality for hearing function, hence why the test doesn’t catch everything.

So there you have it. One of thousands of pictures/experiences/comments I haven’t gotten to.

I need to fix the gallery.

I need a mug with my kids pictures on it.

What happened to me?

- b

Run Around Naked

In addition to “The Evening News” nightly routine, Abigail’s added “Run Around Naked”

Yeah. It’s just what it sounds like.

I don’t know how she doesn’t freeze.

- b

Wandering on Gothics

Had another successful winter trip in the Adirondacks.

As usual, learned all kinds of new things for the next trip.

Though the biggest thing I still need to learn is to not take so much responsibility for the trip. I book the cabin, plan the route, but it should end there.

Conditions were marginal. The interior had plenty of snow and ice, but the approach was only frozen.

The sled worked great, but only mine. There were a couple of other variations that didn’t. Personally I’ll never haul a pack on my back in there again.

I’ve got more pictures and commentary coming sometime. In the meantime you can check out what Buddy had to say here.

- b

The Plan

Headed to the heated cabin again in the Adirondacks.  The guys liked it so much last year, we decided to do it again.

Going to try something a little different this time. This year I have a sled to haul in my gear.

As long as there’s a enough snow, the sled should work great. Once in, and for our adventure day on Wednesday, I’ll use a smaller “summit” pack to hike around the interior.

You may remember Jeff and I tried our own ill fated sled designs a few years ago. See them here. This design and attempt should be far more successful.

To follow along you’ve got a couple of options. The first two are weather related. The first is for the general area where we’ll be:

Johns Brook Weather

The second is for Mt. Marcy. Though we won’t be going up Marcy this year, we’ll be summitting in the vecinity.

Mt. Marcy Weather

The third option is to follow my Spot messages here. You should start seeing something around lunch on Tuesday.

Honestly I think the hardest part about this trip (besides being so out of shape) is being without Abigail for 3 days. We had a really good weekend. Lots of fun. Hopefully she doesn’t forget too much between now and next weekend.

- b

Repair & Packing

I’m hauling 4 guys and their gear to the Adirondack’s this week. To do that I’ll need both of my rooftop boxes on my car. In moving my load bars around to do this, I broke one of the roof-rack feet. The adjustment bolt froze itself in place and broke.

First I tried some Loosen-All. When that didn’t work, I resorted to heat.

When heat didn’t work, I resorted to trying to replace the parts from what I could find at the hardware store.

The red box is the frozen piece. All the other bolts and metal dowel thingy are the pieces I bought. I wasn’t necessarily interested in the molly bolt, but the bolt itself was the right length.

First I had to grind down the width of the dowel to the width of the frozen one. Abigail was happy to wear the face mask for this part.

And just like that it was fixed.

I went with the stainless bolt (event though it’s phillips) hoping it wouldn’t freeze.

Voila!  Two rooftop boxes. Bye bye gas mileage.

Time to start packing.

- b

Preparations

Trying out my new gear sled contraption

The motocross helmet was Abigail’s idea.

Maybe more info later. We’ll see what kind of time I get.

- b

Abigail’s Amazing

Abigail turned two this past weekend.

- b

Really Cute

We have so many like these

If only I had the time to get them all to the gallery. Between managing two crying girls all weekend and an uptick at work, there’s not a lot left over.

As long as they’re content, the gallery can wait.

- b

The Hair Episode

I wasn’t there, so I can’t really say.

What I do know is some around here haven’t been happy with the frizz that is Abigail’s baby hair. To combat that, coconut oil was applied and left to set a while.

Did it work?

Eh.

The first 2 days it just looked greasy, then oddly it looked much better.

A week later, we back to the same old same old.

It’s just hair.

It’ll grow out eventually.

- b