Another One Bites the Dust- or, First I Was Riding My Bike, Then I Wasn't- UPDATED

The phone rang last Friday as we were expecting our friends over for dinner..... it was C.. "I fell off my bike." He'd been riding his bike to and from work (6 miles!) to stay in shape, reduce his carbon footprint, and save gas. He hit a part of the curb at a weird angle and his bike went one way and he went the other in front of a Wendy's on Peachtree Road. He needed stitches in his chin and ended up with a broken radius (it was a stable fracture so he only needed to wear a sling for the weekend) and sprained his wrist and elbow and had some pretty gross road rash. The bike is fine, however.

He was tough through the stitches (didn't hurt that the PA who did them was pretty and kind) and were out of there in less than 4 hours. Thanks the the B/S family for caring for and feeding our kids! He is healing well and will be back at the orthopedist in a couple weeks for follow up. He's got a new pair of glasses on order out of the episode.

Thanks for all your well wishes! Carlton is mostly healed up, and will see the orthopedist this week for follow-up (his wrists are not quite back to normal). Just to be clear, he DID have on a helmet, or else things could have been a lot worse! In fact, I had to clean little tiny bits of black bike-helmet foam out of his PORES on his forehead where his head and the sidewalk were the bread of a bike-helmet sandwich.

Trash to Treasure

I found an old coffee table in a neighbor's trash can just as I was thinking of wanting to do a bench project for her piano recital that we could donate to the Girl Scout hut.

We painted it up in a McKenzie Child style in colors that match the GS hut decor (!) and it turned out pretty cute. I still need to put a coat of polyurethane on it before we take it over there for permanent use. Meanwhile, it's our piano bench, and I need to keep looking for one that matches OUR decor :-)

Bonus- you can see my kitty Butterscotch in the background of the top picture.

M: Bassist Extroirdinaire

Here is M with her Bass teacher, Mrs. B, after her spring recital. She played "Country Dance." As a funny aside, K told Mrs. B that she looked like a mermaid (which she sort of does!). Maren was accepted to a Jazz workshop put on by professors and students from the Jazz Program at the Juilliard School of Music this summer, which is very exciting. The culminating performance is Friday night, June 20, at 6 pm, at North Atlanta High School, and is free, so if you like Jazz music, come on down.

More J Spring Fun

C coached J's soccer team again this spring- they had a tough season since they 'played up' a league to the 9 and 10 year old teams, but they played hard and learned a lot. Here is the cheer she and her dad made up for the team: "Give me a T (clap clap). Give me and O (clap clap). Give me an O, give me a T, give me an S-I-E! Rooooooooooooolllllllll Tootsie Rolls!!!!"

Spring Break Date

Over spring break I took J on an outing to the Chattahoochee River. It was a beautiful morning and great to spend time with Just Juju.

Facebook ?

My blogging sure has suffered this month! Talent Night sucked up major amounts of time, then all the end of the school year banquets, events, teacher gifts, etc. Now there are three kids under foot 24-7!

But my real excuse is spending my blogging time on Facebook. If you are not my 'friend' yet, search for me. Consider this my invitation to you- will you be my friend?

Great parenting site

I recently came across this parenting website when preparing a session I'm giving at the La Leche League of Georgia Area Conference. The resources on parenting 'tweens' were plentiful and very well researched and presented. Here is a tidbit from Dr. Laura Marham who runs the site:

Tweens are emerging teens, but they’re still children. They’ll astonish you with their ability to conceptualize, to argue brilliantly, and then to do foolish things.

The Middle School years are a time of magical blossoming, but like all huge transitions in our kids' lives, they’re filled with ups and downs. As with parenting toddlers, parents who don’t accept and constructively negotiate their child's blossoming independence invite rebellion, or even worse, deception.

The biggest danger for tweens is losing the connection to parents while struggling to find their place and connect in their peer world. The biggest danger for parents is trying to parent through power instead of through relationship, thus eroding their bond and losing their influence on their teen.