It’s funny, they creep up on you.

Today we bought Aidan his first bike. Well, technically we were proxies for Grandma and Grandpa who wanted to buy Aidan a tricycle for his birthday. Unfortunately, our living arrangements don’t really allow us to have a trike — no where to store it, and really no where to ride it except on the side walk. But we live on a hill — 22% grade according to the signs — and trikes don’t have brakes. And frankly, Aidan’s a bit of a small guy and last year he wasn’t really big enough for a trike. This year, though, he seems to fit the 12″ bikes quite well. And, we found a bike with a parental handle on the back — which seems to be ideal! The one shown to the right is the bike, but the one that we bought doesn’t have the Tigger head on it, or the tassles. Instead it has a black handlebar bag with a Tigger on it. And instead of spokes, it has solid discs in the rims. We must have the ’08 model.

We also bought him a helmet (skateboard style) that came with elbow and knee pads. The kicker is — they’re sized for ages 5+ and Aidan’s head size is at the top end of the head sizes that the helmet will fit (21″ vs 21 1/4″ max size). 5+ years old? Do these kids have freakishly small heads? After I got the proper size pads in the helmet, he stopped complaining that it hurt when it was on. :) He seemed to like the elbow and knee pads, and wore them over his pyjamas for a good portion of the night. Actually, he seemed to like the idea that they were to keep him safe if he fell (or in toddler terms, ‘crashed’). I know this because he proceeded to throw himself at the floor, repeatedly. At least his elbows and knees were safe. I did worry a bit about his wrists, though.

At any rate, we’ll get some pictures once we have a sunny day.

Of course, it’s supposed to be a birthday present so unless he specifically asks for it we might keep it from him for the next few weeks.

The other milestone that we’re dealing with today is moving Aidan from the crib to a toddler bed. Well, that’s not strictly true — his crib converted into a toddler bed. And, he’s been down since 7:30ish. There were tears, with him saying that he wasn’t ready for his crib … and I’m not sure if he meant that he wasn’t ready for the toddler bed, or if was just generally not ready to go to bed. Gwen stayed down and calmed him down. I’ve been down twice in the half hour that followed to calm down more tears. But in the past half hour (it’s 8:45 now) I haven’t heard anything from him. And, not once did he get up out of the toddler bed. Let’s see if that holds all night long.

And we’ll deal with tomorrow night tomorrow.

This is part of the reason why we cache, and why we place caches (from our Are You Shore You Don’t Know Jack cache in West Vancouver):

Wow! Now this is why I go geocaching on business trips.

So there I was stuck in meetings, looking out the window and noticing that the sky is clear–a February rarity in the Northwest. I begin to get restless. I’m hoping the meetings are done at least before dark and I figure that maybe I could nab a nearby urban micro or two. My heart, though, is pulling me toward a corner of the map that shows a lighthouse and a park along the inlet.

Then a miracle occurs: the meetings conclude at 4pm! I race back to my hotel, change clothes, grab my gear and head for the rental car. I’m glad I have everything pre-loaded into my GPS. By 5pm I’m walking down a path surrounded by giant pine trees and following the needle toward the cache.

I logged the cache about 5:30p and then stood there and admired the view. What a difference from the drab conference rooms, PowerPoint shows, and emails of the day. I’m used to mountains for sure, but you Canadians really have a great thing going here with the mountains rising right out of water.

Thanks, Left Coast Floyds, for placing this cache. It was just the energizing break I needed, and another great example of how geocaching has taken me to places I would have otherwise never seen.

Proimion
Centennial, Colorado USA

PS. Go Avs!

Aidan’s crib broke the other day.

Wednesday last in fact. Gwen leaned into it to push the rail edge beyond the catches, and “Snap!” the top rail of the drop side broke. It hasn’t completely broken, but it has cracked through. The teething rail is helping keep it together.

Our temporary solution has been to put that side of the crib against the wall and deal with retrieving him without lowering the rail. Not a big deal given his size and mobility.

But what to do with the crib? It’s not exactly dangerous as is, but not 100% safe either. Gwen called Storkcraft (a local company would you believe) and, surprise, surprise, our crib model (“Ashley”) is discontinued and they don’t have any replacement bits. $280 dollar crib, 3 years old, and broken. It’s not like we abuse the crib, and I’ve never seen him stand up and rattle the rail either, so it’s particularly disappointing.

So, do we do a home-fix, convert it into a toddler bed, or get a new one? Well, I think getting a new one is out of the question right now — seems pointless. Fixing it is do-able: I think that effectively putting a splint on the rail will keep it together pretty well. Metal straps will work, but I think I could patch it up pretty well with fibreglass; unfortunately Gwen’s put the kibosh on that.

And then there’s the option of transforming the crib into a toddler bed. I’m leaning towards this, but the fact is that I don’t think Aidan’s ready for it. He likes his crib. He doesn’t try to get out of it. He happily plays in it for hours. We’ve asked him if he wants to sleep in a big boy bed, and Gwen’s gone to Ikea to get him to test drive some of the beds there, and the reaction ranges from tepid to outright rejection.

So, what to do?

14 degrees and sunny. Ah, February in Vancouver. Amidst the gloom and rain, it always seems we get one week of sunshine in February. So, we did what any sensible family does, we went out and enjoyed it … by doing some geocaching!

We grabbed a few from UBC campus (True North, Strong and Free, and The Whaler’s Pole) and then headed down to the foreshore…

Here are a few from a cache appropriate called Strait of Georgia View:

And these were all taken from a cache called “Acadia Beach” (sadly many klicks away from Acadia)

Gwen tries to hide from muggles while putting the cache back:

More from the beach:

And yesterday I managed to squeeze in a “nemesis” cache: Top Arch. You might get a kick out of my original DNF log and the final find log.

And, oh!  Our 7th placed cache (replacing a cache we had adopted): Rock One Hundred.