Oskar is 8!

Oskar turned 8 on Memorial Day and his birthday celebrations lasted all week.  We spent Memorial Day weekend in Susanville for a mountain bike race where both Alva and Oskar competed.  It was Alva’s first ride and she was super stoked to complete the 2 mile kids ride. And it was Oskar’s second ride (just first being at Scott’s Flat Lake the previous October), although even with the previous experience, Martin was a bit worried about the difficulty level and how Oskar would do. 

It took Oskar two hours to complete the 9.5 mile, 785 ft elevation ride, coming in second (of two) in his category and age group. While second, he did receive a huge round of applause as he crossed the finish line and the announcer commented that he was the youngest rider on that ride. Side note; while Oskar was climbing up and down the mountain and over rough terrain, my emotions were doing similar gymnastics. In the two hour ride I experienced: excitement for Oskar and what he was going to do, amusement and acceptance that mountain bike racing weekends will be in our future, curiosity on if I could make this my community of people, concern that Oskar would be overwhelmed and therefore discouraged on the ride given the difficulty Martin was concerned about, validation of my concerns when I got a text from Martin an hour in to the ride noting that it was taking longer than expected, panic that something might have happened an hour later and they still hadn’t come back, the mama bear urge to give Oskar a big hug in case he was in tears when he finally showed up, then pride hearing that he was the youngest rider out there, shortly followed by guilt for ever doubting that he could do it, peppered with a little satisfaction when Martin said he was slightly worried along the way, and of course unconditional love seeing how proud Oskar was of himself while showing off his bruises and scrapes. While Alva pointed out later that I was the only one who didn’t ride a bike that day (thereby implying I didn’t deserve the ice cream we were eating) I would beg to differ. The mental work I did might not have been seen but it was equally exhausting. 

We spent Sunday throwing rocks at Eagle Lake (where Oskar managed to trip over his feet and gave himself a bigger scratch than all of his previous day’s bruises and scratches combined) and wrapped up the weekend with lunch at the Worl’s in Reno on our way home.  It was a super relaxing weekend, but I had to get Martin back to the city: by Sunday evening he was starting to romance the idea of living in a small town. 

The following weekend we hosted a small group of friends for Oskar’s birthday party.  I always stress about planning and hosting birthday parties so Martin offered to do everything.  He planned the activity (a woodworking class for the 5 kids to make tic tac toe boards), baked the cake, bought the snacks, sent out the invitations and coordinated with the parents.  And the kids had a great time!  The activity took close to two hours, with plenty of breaks in between for snacks and nonsense, and there was just enough time for cake before the kids were picked up. 

The birthday celebrations wrapped up on Sunday with cake with my parents. Where Oskar showed off his growing record collection.

As a side note: the weekend before Oskar's Birthday, Martin and Alva had their father / daughter weekend in Santa Cruz so Oskar and I had a chance to hang out in the city with just the two of us. We ate sushi at Sushi Boat in Chinatown (where I realized too late we shouldn't go to sushi hungry, especially when the sushi casually floats by you on boats allowing you to grab what you want when you want it). We went to Musee Mechanique. We braved the crowds at the Fisherman Wharf's In 'n Out Burger. And I introduced Oskar to the local record shops. He bought his first record (AC/DC) and I introduced him to Creedence Clearwater Revival (a record I had "borrowed" from my parents) and Led Zeppelin and he was immediately hooked. He now takes every opportunity to put on a record and listen to the music.