"Oh, I love you mom. You're the best mom in the world. Here let me hug you. Oh, and a kiss. Let me kiss you. You make me so happy."
All of this for putting the training wheels back on Antonio's bike.
I had it in my head that it was time that both of the kids learn to ride their bikes without training wheels. I had an agenda. This summer I wanted to run around Lake Harriet while the kids biked next to me - and to ride to the park and to friends houses.
"I'll learn when I'm eight years old mom. Maybe seven," Antonio said as he wheeled away.
I mean his cousin Danny who is eight months younger than the children learned how to ride without training wheels when he was three years old. Look at him in the photo - no training wheels! Yes, I know, he does have older brothers but - but - my kids are so athletic. And besides I learned how to ride a bike when I was six. You'd think they would welcome the freedom.
Instead there were tears and tussling.
Crystel scrunched herself on her Care Bear plastic three wheeler that she got for her third birthday and wouldn't give it up to her younger not yet three year old cousin, Jack. I realized then that something was wrong with my thinking. Here I had two perfectly wonderful bikes in the garage that they couldn't ride because before the first nice day arrived this spring, while it was still dark, while the children were not yet awake, I did the deed.
They are so happy when I change my mind.
