Family on wheels

Sydney and I recently got the idea to purchase “hybrid” bicycles (a cross between a mountain bike and a road bike), with a child seat on the back for Jameson and just like that we have a new favorite family hobby! We bought the bikes with a little bit of trepidation as it was a good amount of money to spend on something that we didn’t have a lot of experience with to know how well our fickle rider would take to it. Previous experience was limited to a short ride in a tow along cart up in Elk Grove, which went fine, and a longer ride in a tow along cart in the South Bay, which went well on the 30 minute ride to Redondo harbor, but the way back quickly and steadily progressed from; pleadings of “Ah Done” that increased in frequency and volume and ended in all out crying. Happily though it was clear immediately, as we had hoped, that the improved vantage point that he gained from being in a back seat did wonders for his tolerance. He started our first ride in his new seat by laughing out loud for a full block as we coasted down Main street and made a turn for Dockweiler beach. Our next ride was the next night and involved a much riskier 10 mile round trip trek that took us down to 8th street in Manhattan Beach to say hi to my friends who were playing in our Thursday night volleyball game, then up to Wahoo’s for some chicken and rice and then back home. This trip also went flawlessly and he seemed to enjoy every minute, pointing out the beach, ocean, tractors, doggies and birdies to me as we went along. Any time there was an extended lull I would reach back to check on him by offering up a behind the back low five just to make sure he was still hanging tough, and each time he was.

After our two solo test rides we got Sydney in on the act. Our first ride was the same 10 mile loop to Wahoo’s. Then on 4th of July weekend we decided to head North for a trip up and around Marina Del Rey into Venice beach. Having never taken the strand so far in that direction we were both a little nervous, but aside from some tired legs the trip went great. We stopped in Venice at the sidewalk café for breakfast and then went over to the skate park to watch the skateboarders. Jameson loved watching them fly around in the park. We sat him up on the railing and he would say “Wow” whenever they would speed by or do a trick worth noting. The ride was about 45 minutes each way and we covered 17-18 miles, Jameson didn’t complain once. We duplicated this ride a couple of weeks later with similar success, but this time we were enjoying ourselves so much in Venice and at the bike shop where we stopped for air, helmets and a couple of other things that our trip extended a little later than we would have liked. Still, no complaints from the backseat boogit. On the way back once we got past the Marina and into Playa del Ray I started feeling him touching my back. This was not too uncommon as periodically he would do so, but this seemed to be going on for longer than normal. None-the-less I just assumed that he had his hand on my back and continued on. It wasn’t until another rider got my attention by letting me know that “your passenger is out” that I realized that it wasn’t his hand, but his helmet that was resting on my back. Apparently we had drifted too far into nap time and he decided that his seat was as good a place as any to go ahead and get the nap in.

On the potty training front: He understands what the potty is for as we have sat him down numerous times and he has been able to go, but he has yet to make the jump to letting us know when he has to go so that we can get him in the right spot. He doesn’t seem in any hurry for that.

This past weekend we had a birthday for him. Sydney’s sister and her family came down from Oakland for a visit. We had a great time with them. Their oldest daughter came down on Tuesday afternoon to spend some quality time with Sydney. Sydney was really looking forward to it and I think they had lots of fun together. On Wednesday night we went to a place called “Scooter’s Jungle”, which is a big warehouse building where they have put a variety of blow up “Jumpy Houses”. By the time I met up with Sydney, Charlotte and Jameson all that Jameson could talk about was “We go Jumpy house”. He was clearly excited, but I’m not sure if he actually knew what a jumpy house was, or if it was just the prospect of a house dedicated to jumping that was enough to get his excitement level so high. I’m confident that it lived up to all of his expectations for what it would be as we all jumped and played there until we wore ourselves out. Jameson had no fear of the 21 foot slide that we went on. As soon as we would get to the bottom he would start heading for the stairs to climb up again. Charlotte had a great time too.

On Friday we packed in another full day of fun that started with the Long Beach Aquarium, then El Segundo Beach and finished at Rock & Brews. Jameson’s favorite part seemed to me to be playing in the ocean waves. He had an absolute blast throwing sand into the water, getting knocked down by the waves and trying to keep his balance as the water rushed back out after the wave was gone. He even took a couple face fulls of water that left him coughing and me nervously patting him on the back making sure that he was OK. But as soon as he regained his breath he started laughing and I breathed a sigh of relief. I soon realized that my job for this stage of his beach fun was just to stay close and play catcher, keeping an eye on whatever the ocean would throw at us next.

Saturday we had his birthday party at Hilltop park in El Segundo. Sydney did all of the planning and it ended up working out very nicely. There were 3 of his friends from day care and their parents, the Whitney’s and then 3 families of our friends with kids from around here (minus one dad who was playing in the 6-man beach volleyball tournament in Manhattan Beach). We tried to keep it relatively small as we read somewhere that at these younger ages more people can tend to intimidate the kids and keep them from enjoying it. Jameson hardly seemed to notice the others around accept for his cousins and friends. All he wanted to do was go up and down the giant twisty slide that was there, which was probably actually intended for the age group a couple of years ahead of him. All in all I think that he had a great weekend and week off with his mom and hopefully it won’t be too hard for him to have to go back to daycare next week.