Eli's First Bike

This past weekend Brian was pretty busy with the regional black belt test and seminars he was hosting and sometimes when he's gone a lot I like to treat (as in pamper and treat loneliness) myself with a little retail therapy. It was the first day of the REI sale, I had a coupon and some in-store credit to use. New hiking shoes sound in order, right?

Eli and I walked in and he saw the bikes, kids bikes. We've taken him on a couple rides this spring and he sits in a seat on my bike and smiles and laughs the whole time. He probably didn't even know they make bikes for kids. He got excited in the store to see small ones, there were even kids sitting on them. Then I noticed a couple of boxes on the floor that had these cool wooden bikes with no pedals or training wheels, so kids learn to balance after they push off. Another cool invention I only know about because my sister's kids have one. After some guilty shoe-browsing we returned. I had planned on getting him one someday, but my coupons combined with the warm spring weather and the "for ages 2-5" convinced me this big purchase was justified, but only if I didn't get any shoes.

The nice man in the bike shop even put it together right away for free. Eli had the hardest time waiting. He was full of pride and smiles pushing it through the store and insisted on continuing through the parking lot to the car. That night we were going to meet Brian for dinner in town and I knew the boy would assume the bike was like his stroller and that he could take it everywhere. I hid it in the closet and had him rush out. Good thing, once we got to the car he started whining for it.

Brian was excited to take him out to ride on Sunday, but the boy would have none of that. He only wants to push it at this point. He insisted that we walk down the hill and knocked on his friend Curt's door (who was gone because his mom had a baby the day before) to show off his new bike.