Accomplishments

Do you ever take a break in the action of life and suddenly think to yourself, "Holy crap!  I have a three-and-a-half-year-old!"

Sometimes it feels like kids grow a snail's pace.  But then a week flies by and it feels like they've made giant leaps in things that should take months of practice.

"Mommy, I want to go ride my bike."

That's how last week started out.

"Umm, what?  I mean, er, OK!  Go get dressed then!"

We have been trying for-ev-ah to get William to ride the bike we got him for his birthday.  The birthday that was seven months ago.  After countless attempts at trying to get him to catch on to the concept of pedaling he was approaching a conclusion of a parent's worst nightmare.  He was giving up.

"I can't do it, mommy."

"Maybe when I'm four I'll ride a bike."

Not wanting to be those kind of parents, we didn't push the issue further and there the bike sat, all lonely and such in the back of the garage.

So you can imagine my surprise last week when, during a break in our rainy weather, William asked, out of the blue, if he could please go ride his bike.  When I told him he needed to get dressed first he marched into his room, picked out his own clothes (that matched, by the way!) and proceeded to dress himself in two minutes flat.  A record for Master William, my friends.  And a true demonstration of just how bad he wanted to get out there and ride his bike.

I buckled his helmet and in no time he was off, pedaling like an old pro, pushing those legs up the hills and pressing the breaks at all the right places.  I was stunned.  It was like he's been doing this all his life.

You can imagine how excited this little boy was to show his daddy when he got home.  And you can imagine how his daddy felt when he saw his son pedal up and down our block without one single problem or complaint.

After dinner that evening, on account of good behavior and his new found love of biking, we all walked to the ice cream store.  Well, two of us walked.  One rode in her stroller.  The other rode his bike.  The whole way.