Of the things I find it hard to believe, despite the fact that I’ve experienced every second of their truth, is the fact that five years and a day ago I was doing my best not to completely lose my shit while my wife nonchalantly managed, after a couple days of Labor, to give birth to my daughter.

It just doesn’t feel like I have to look very far back to see her first roll over, her first all-fours crawl, or her first steps. I can still hear, plain as day, her beautiful gibberish and remember what it was like to lift her feather-light body up into my arms and to have her small arms and small face tuck into my shoulder as she fell asleep. The look of her face as she built up the scream that followed her tumble off the front porch steps is still clear as day. The first day she went to preschool she seemed much too small and much too young to be in a classroom and it brought tears to my eyes to think of her entering an institutional process she wouldn’t see the end of for at least 15 years. If we’re lucky.

The years are feeling like a ball of snow that started out small and light, rolling slowly downhill. It feels much bigger now, faster, and unstoppable. It doesn’t feel like I get to hold on to the days long enough, now, to savor them as much as I’d like to, and their passing is a little sad. But every one is better than the what’s come before, so it’s hard to be too down about today, every day.

What a splendid young lady my daughter is. I’m so goddam lucky I can hardly stand it. Happy birthday, sweetheart, I love you.

Happy birthday my son. If your sister was any indication, the next 365 days, give or take, are gonna be a challenge, but I have abundant faith in your wits, resourcefulness, and unbounded cuteness, you’ll certainly survive and thrive.

I would consider it a courtesy, however, if you would kindly defile, mutilate, soak, burn, use Sharpies on, and otherwise wreck the items and furnishings that your mother and I are looking for reasons to dispose of before moving on to the irreplaceable items.

Once you reach that point, though, don’t bother differentiating between things too expensive to replace and those of merely sentimental value. And remember, once you cross a certain line, there’s no difference between fubar’ing something a little or a lot, so go big, learn what you can from the trajectories and remains, and enjoy the moment.

This is gonna be a great year! Woo!

Man, my kids get this cold, and they keep colliding around the house like a couple hot, happy gas molecules. The only difference is the occasional snot stream and a little more crankiness.

They give it to me, and it just annihilates me. Clearly, this is not how anyone should be spending a beautiful fall day off. Ah well.

In lieu of a post, here’s a short movie clip from my phone. The whole family on two longtails made a trip up to REI on Sunday via the Northwest Branch Trail, the Northeast Branch Trail, and the Paint Branch Trail through College Park. I took some pics as well, but I still need to get those off the camera, so for now enjoy 26 seconds of low-res, in-pursuit video of my wife and daughter on Nigel.

Back to bed for me, quit makin’ all that racket out there.

[Update]: Oo, almost forgot, if you’ve finished reading the internet and you’re lookin’ for some awesome eye candy, and you weren’t actually in Vegas last week, you could hop on over to Xtracycle’s photostream from Interbike 2008. There’s some gorgeous bikes comin’ out this year, commuters and cargo bikes are on the rise, and the events look like a hoot.

[Update Again]: Want some more? Sure ya do. Bike Hugger / Dapper Lad Bicycles has more.

[Update: now with 20% more updatitude!]: You’ve been browsing the Xtracycle photos, and now you’d like some some copy, some narrative, a little text with your feast of images, because you always want more. Well, bygawd, have more!

[Knock knock! Who's There?] [Update!]: And I’d be remiss if I forgot this: check out FatCyclist’s excllent fan’s-eye-view coverage of Interbike: the outdoor expo, star-struck on day one, Greg LeMon– er, ’scuse me, Lance’s Press Conference, fan photos with Fatty, and a touching story of how he learned to stop chasing women on videotapes so aggressively.

That it? Anyone else want to post a gallery?