The bike

We got Cooper a tiny red bike. It is awesome. He loves it to death. I mean seriously, it is unbelievable how much he likes this bike. All we've done, all we've talked about, and all the exercise he's gotten since this bike was purchased (Friday morning) has been about the bike. That's really about 7 hours of biking a day, for four days. Honest to god.

After breakfast for the last three days, he's run out to the garage door yelling about how he needs his bike and his bike helmet and momma open the gate and Cooper wants to ride his bike in the street and ride the bike to see Mudge (a local dog he likes) and ride the bike to the park to see the horsies and Dada push Cooper on the bike to go fast and ride the bike to Julie's and Ollie's house (pronounced "JewwyOwwies hoooome"). Then he rides it around in the yard. And as soon as Grant has started his morning nap (often around 8:30am), we head out onto the pavement.

The baby monitor barely, barely receives a working signal as we circle the block over, and over, and over again, incredibly slowly. Cooper stops and stands still for every car (Matt taught him that, and while it is safe, it is tiresome). He patiently aligns his tiny handlebars with his body each time he falls, and murmurs, "Cooper got it. Bike up." This morning we spent 30 minutes watching a man with a chainsaw cut dead limbs off a neighbor's tree, all the time standing transfixed on the bike. "Cooper, do you want to go get closer to the man and the tree?" "No. Cooper on bike. No loud noise." "OK, Cooper, do you want mama to push you on the bike away from the loud noise?" "No. My got it."

Last night, as I attempted to get Cooper off his bike and inside to go to bed, he started throwing a fit and crying. When I finally got him to calm down enough to talk, it was revealed that the problem wasn't exactly that I had told him he needed to get off his bike. The problem was that Dad told him the helmet ALWAYS stays with the bike, and I had foolishly put it on the bench in the entryway, and what if "helmet went missin'" and then, well... chaos, right? The end of the world? So I told Cooper that I had made a mistake, and of course he should go RIGHT NOW and put the helmet on his bike. He wiped up the tears and trotted out to the bike, gently placed his tiny red helmet onto the handlebars (just like Mom and Dad do) and came back inside to go to bed.

Needless to say, this weekend's biking ranks second only to Cooper's first day on skis in terms of things Cooper has done that make Matt feel like the proudest, happiest, father on earth.