Bikes and Bubbles

"Ignore petty problems...", with that, I come back to my senses, set down my iphone, swallow the dregs of my now cold espresso, and push my chair away from the kitchen table. I savored the last few moments, surfing on my tiny screen, without interruption. I grab a scrap of paper and a dull pencil with the eraser rubbed down to the metal binding, and go outside, intending to sit on the bottom step of the deck and watch the boys riding their bicycles. "Ignore petty problems..." this wasn't the actual statement that jolted me away from my phone and back to life, only the gist... the specific words fled my mind as soon as I stepped outside. My older son was on the pea gravel, tangled upside down on his tricycle "I have my helmet on, mom." He was practicing his crashes.

I sit down on the bottom step and place the bubble machine two feet in front of me. I fill it up max (so it will run on for a while) with the bubble juice from blue jug and turn it on. This is not the super bubbly stuff, the blue jug makes only half the bubbles compared to the green jug, but the gooey contents of the green jug was spilled weeks ago. What on earth? Here comes the little guy, trying to crawl through the bubbles on all fours with his butt arched high in the air. Oh-oh! I reach out too late. The bubble machine gets turned over, soap runs everywhere. I fill it up again, move it to the left, then race up the stairs and run into the house to grab another scrap of paper. Crash...this time it was the scooter, both boys, and the bubble machine that all landed on their asses. Everyone is ok.