New Wheels

For the past year Joe has been riding a tricycle with a bum wheel while hitting his knees against the front fender. By bum wheel, we mean it would fall off at least once per outing. Joe never seemed to mind. He would just come to a grinding halt on one axel and wait to be repaired. How they let us have children I sometimes wonder.

Anyway, we knew come springtime we would need a new bike for Joe, so this weekend with temps in the 60s called for that new bike. He is still in learning mode, so we just got him the 12" frame bike at Target, which of course is decked out in a Cars theme. It was fun being in Target this morning with the kids, going to the shelf and picking up the bike and putting into the cart. He never had such a fruitful trip to Target before!

So this afternoon, Ted and Joe assembled bikes. There was also a new tricycle* for Clara that she got for Christmas and was ready for its maiden voyage.

Joe was very helpful taking off packaging pieces and handing said pieces to Ted who could sit in a chair most of the time - it's nice having a helper who gets joy in simply handing you things. After Joe's bike was assembled, we took it for a spin down the alley as seen in the picture. He took right to it, though the braking was a new concept, and he was looking at the peddles a lot, which made his steering a little questionable.

We waited for Clara to wake up before going on our first real family outing with the new bikes. Clara loved being pushed in her new pink bike, which allows the rider to not peddle when being pushed, and also comes with a handle for the parent - a clear need we realized after a year hunched over helping to push Joe along. Joe was a little dazed for the first leg of the journey - perhaps he was tired, or a little nervous about being on the open road, or was just testing out his brakes a lot. But at the end of the trip he was rockin' as they say.

So we look forward to a long bike riding season (with helmets from now on) with all of our wheels functioning.

* We at least knew we needed to retire the bum-wheeled bike. However, in assembling Clara's bike, it came with a spare part that was just what I needed to fix the old one. So now it works too!