kiwords

This afternoon the whole clan here went for a bike ride. Me and the boys, Mom and Dad, the whole bunch of us. What was thrilling about this bike ride is that Max rode his own bike for the first time. He usually rides on a hiker bike behind me, but he’s gotten so adept on his own tiny bike that we decided to let him try to go it on his own. We planned a route that wouldn’t leave us too far away from the truck should Max wear out unexpectedly, and we were off.
Now, to start off with, I have to admit that I was thrilled to have that hiker bike thing OFF MY BIKE. I hate to tell you that, because it seems like a good mother would LIKE having her son safely tethered to her bike like that. But Max likes to sit back there and wobble. This caused me to have to GRIP my handle bars and fight to keep the bike upright.
“Max? HONEY?” I would say sweetly, “why are you WIGGLING like that?”
“Oh, I just thought I’d make the ride more interesting.”
Yeah. So it was good to have him on his own bike, and he did remarkably well. Toward the end of the trip he was starting to say wistfully,
“You know, I was wrong. I didn’t really want to bring my bike,”
But he made it! He kept up, manfully pedaling as fast as he could. We all stopped on our way through the dog park, to watch the dogs jumping into the stream. For our dog-hungry family the dog park is like Match.com. We peer at the different dogs, and ask questions. Just looking for dogs in all the wrong places…I suspect we’re not actually ready to commit.
But there’s this big cottonwood tree there, by the stream, and Raphael is determined to climb the thing. Each time we go there he scales a little higher, then gets nervous and demands to be helped down. Then he yells at anyone who tries to help him. He loves the tree.
Tre went down the steep bank right beside the river, and plotted ways to get across. On the other side is a sandy bank, and he’s trying to figure out if it would hold his weight, or be too mushy to stand on. I keep discouraging explorations across the water, but I know he’s going to have to try it eventually.
Max sat down at the top of the bank to watch the dogs splash in the water. Mom sat next to him, and shielded him the best she could when a large Golden Retriever bounded up out of the water and leaped happily around them.
I stood back, watching Mom and Max laugh at the dog that was splashing them thoroughly, Dad standing patiently below Raphael as he climbed the tree, and Tre, leaning as far over the water as he could, and trying to poke the sand with a long stick. The afternoon sun was a rich gold, and the air held the chill of fall.
Some moments are so perfect it almost hurts.