Just WHOSE birthday was it?

As part of my birthday celebration today I suggested that we go to the great bike path by the river. We could let Cal ride like the wind on his bicycle while we walked behind him. I made sure to bring the long handle bar that lets the parent push/direct the bike just in case he got tired and didn't want to peddle back to the car. He was riding and riding and doing great, but the handle bars kept getting misaligned with the tire. In order to go straight he had to "steer" all the way to the right. I fixed the alignment four or five times. We figured we'd have to pull out the wrenches when we got home in order to fix the problem permenantly. Then, we were telling Cal it was time to stop and turn around (and he was whining that he didn't want to stop) something very strange happend. Very strange. The entire front part of the bike fell off. Wink looked at the bike collapse and said he had a bad feeling that this was not an easy repair.


So...using the parent bar, Wink tilted Cal backwards and pushed him all the way back to the car. An extremely amusing, but exhausting trip back. We drove straight to the bike shop and got the bad news...the bike is not fixable. They had one trike in the entire store and Cal started test driving it right away. It is a "roadster" tricycle that looks like a low-rider, hot rod 50s style bike. Cal looked hilarious with his surfboard shirt riding this bike. It looked like he just needed a white ponytail coming out from his head and classic Beach Boys music playing in the background.

I really wasn't into the look of the bike at all, and I figured that Lissi wouldn't love the bike when she's older. But, he loves to ride his bike so much that the thought of looking all over for another bike (similar to our old one) seemed sad. I caved and agreed to the purchase since this bike was on sale and only a little bit more money new than Cal's bike was when I bought it used.


So the big birthday present of the day was Cal's new shiny "vroomy" red trike. His birthday is one month from today. I hope he remembers that his gift came very early this year! And my gift from all of this? Seeing him race around the block at twice the speed he was able to do on his old bike--wow!