Our kids love to ride bikes. Seeing them zooming around happily makes me smile. There are a few ingredients, when added to a childhood that dramatically increase success and good times.
- Homemade baked goods. Not all the time, but sometimes.
- Kites.
- Water and mud.
- Tree climbing.
- Roadside lemonade stands.
- Fingerpainting.
- Mud pies.
- Matchbox car races.
- Legos.
- Sleeping under the stars.
- Bikes.
This list is not exhaustive, but it's a start. (In order for me to function these days, I embrace starts and imperfect efforts--otherwise I wouldn't accomplish much.)
So, Bikes! Kids on bikes make me smile. If you look carefully at this picture of Gabe, you should be able to see a scrape that takes up roughly 1/8 of his face. He and Lucy were riding bikes and he crashed. He was wearing a helmet, thank heavens. It took a good half of an hour for him to stop screaming. I probably would've screamed too, poor kid. This happened a few days ago, and the picture isn't from today either, but the only real difference now is that there is some green around his eye now.
He's a chip off the old block. Both his dad and I have had some pretty good bike crashes, too.
