Happy birthday little one, One Year and One Half. “I have eighteen months!” Love you little face. What a fun day biking with mom and dad on Lake Shore Drive, along with all the other crazy people. We did 22 miles and you barely complained. Even fell asleep on the way home. You had your Ugly Baby and your Baby Kitty and you all got a lot of attention from the other riders. You wear your helmet like a champ, because you see mom and dad doing it so you want to be part of the club. You are the apple of our eye!
Ok, so this is rather silly. I am attaching photos that Lucy took with my camera. A baby’s photos. Of course, I would only want to share these with folks who really love this stinker, as I know it would be silly to anyone else.
She loves the cause/effect of pushing the button and hearing the shutter click, and of course she knows to look at the back and see the image appear. I allowed her to play with my older D50 camera, as it is highly durable and you could probably drop it off the side of a boat and it would still work.
There were many crotch shots and carpet photos, so we kept telling her to turn it around or hold it up.
It is rather adorable to see photos from her perspective, a little person 32 inches tall. A couple of them could possibly be considered still life or abstract art! I will phone the modern art galleries in NYC….
It sure is handy having a spouse who’s a bike mechanic. Pete got “Lucille” built up today and we took her out for a spin to prepare for Bike the Drive tomorrow. It sure is cute to see Lucy by this bike, and hopefully someday when she is grown I will have a photo of her riding it… off to college… or the circus… or the Senate.
So the story goes…On a total fluke, Pete won “a custom bike frame” from a raffle he was automatically entered into upon registering for a cyclocross race. He came home saying, “I have good news, and bad news.” The bad news being that we already have a veritable barn full of bikes crammed into “The Baby’s Bedroom” aka “The 20 Bikes Room”. So my eyes were rolling out of my head as I absorbed the irony of our household winning another bicycle. He simply doesn’t need any more bikes. I told him he needs to give it away to someone. He proffered that perhaps getting a custom bike built for me could replace my existing bike, or at least allow that one to be converted into a racing bike. Oh, the wheelin’ and dealin’ that goes on around here when it comes to bikes. My rule is: 1 bike in = 1 bike out. He is more like… “How about 1.75 bikes in = 1 bike out?”
Fast forward more than a year… we receive the frame, get the hand lettering done, and then Pete used parts we already had, or got new parts from SRAM and Velo Orange and built it up into the finished bike. The guys who built the frame gave it the custom powder coat paint job of John Deere green. The style of frame is called “Mixte” which is a girl’s bike with a step-through frame so you can wear a skirt.
Before & After:
Yes, it’s true, I will hold you until my arm is sweaty and numb, staring at your profile and your suckling lips, on this unusual occasion that you have fallen asleep in my arms, wind and children’s voices wafting in from the open window, touching your hair and your mind.
There is a terrible genetic disease that runs in my family. I am a carrier and I passed it on to my daughter. It’s called Severe Bedhead Syndrome. It extends beyond the bed and into Awake and Running Around Syndrome. It’s like every minute of every day, untamed locks.
Fashion shoot with a wind machine?
She’s holding a rag here, so this pose reminds me of the janitor from The Breakfast Club.