Time on the Bike
Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 10:47AM
My six-year-old is turning into a biking fanatic—which I’m absolutely loving. After my long commute every day, I walk in the door, usually sweating, dying for a beer, and hoping to smell a waft of freshly cooked dinner filling the air. Instead I usually see my daughter watching SpongeBob, no beer in the fridge, the smell of cat, and my son screaming “can we go for a bike-ride dad?!!! Can we pleeeeeease??!!”
The longest ride I’ve taken the little bastard on is about 18 miles. Now keep in mind he’s on a little kids dirt-bike. Nothing fancy, no bike shorts to protect his precious hiny, no gloves for better grip, no bike shoes to help provide efficient pedaling…..just a helmet and a bike. And he loves it—begging for more when we’re done.
Along the rides I have the best fucking talks and the shit that comes out of his mouth is so cool and unexpected sometimes.
Along the Salt Creek trail he’ll say – “OOOHHH! This is my favorite part – look at the cool trees and how green everything is. Over here is where we usually see deer. I love the woods.”
And I’m all, “Yeah – it’s pretty awesome Grayson,” while I’m choking back tears and trying to keep a manly appearance.
On a ride the other day I said – “Hey, you could be Lance Armstrong for Halloween.”
He said – “Or, I could be that blonde headed woman who dropped my favorite toy the other day and busted it all over the floor.” He was talking about my wife dropping his favorite toy, breaking it and all his hopes and dreams along with it. Totally fucking random, out of the blue, and cool as shit. I love minds that work randomly and even more when he can work it into shit.
So I’m going to keep taking the bike rides. My struggle is giving him choices that allow him to take it up a notch without seeming like I’m pushing him. I’m trying to be the opposite of how my dad was. If it was my dad – he’d buy him a 10-speed with all the gear then yell at him to train harder, do better, and if I didn’t, he’s stop coming to my races cause it’s “a waste of his time.”
Regardless if he takes it to the next step or not, I’ll continue to soak in every damn word that random kid says and keep riding his back wheel through the woods.