The kids and I bought BeAGoodMom a bike for Mother’s Day. She’s been putting off buying one for a couple years despite talking about how much she wants one. I figured out that it must be some kind of subtle hint for me to buy her one.
On Monday, BeAGoodMom and I hatched a big plan to make all of this happen. We were all going to walk to Meijer (technically Giggles was freeloading in the stroller). BeAGoodMom would pick out her bike and we would all walk home with BeAGoodMom doing some riding and some walking and some taunting us for moving so slowly.
Geetle asked if she could ride her bike to the store and the plan changed to having the kids ride to the store and ride home with me pushing Giggles back and forth.
Then, we decided that it was time the kids got larger bikes and we would walk to the store, buy 3 bikes, they could all ride home, and I’m still stuck pushing Giggles.
So, off we go.
BeAGoodMom tested her bike in the halls of Meijer and found on she liked. The big kids wandered through the toy aisles while we picked out bikes for them.
Here’s where things started going wrong. The kids need 20″ bikes now. 20″ bikes come without training wheels. My kids are 6 and still need training wheels. We bought two Huffy bikes and picked up two of the only training wheels they sell (Schwinn’s ones that say fits most bikes 16″ – 20″).
I added a couple cheap wrenches to the cart so I could install the training wheels in the parking lot.
While I was trying to steer the two small bikes to the register, Pookie climbed onto his seat and started pedaling. We ended up crashing into a sunglasses display which encouraged the very nice Meijer employee to help us get our traveling circus to the front of the store.
After dorking with the wheels for a while, I realized that I would also need a screwdriver to take off the little plastic piece that covers the chain so that you don’t get your shoe lace caught in the chain (I would have killed for one of those back in the day when I was riding uphill both ways in the snow being chased by polar bears) and that I was pretty sure that the training wheels were not going to work anyway.
So now we are stuck with $300+ of bikes and bike accessories and 3 very hungry and bored kids in the parking lot of Meijer.
BeAGoodMom volunteers to ride her bike home and come back in the minivan to pick us up. The three kids waited remarkably well but were happy when the minivan arrived. After loading the two kid bikes we realized there would only be room for 3 people in the car. 1 driver and 2 big kids in the way back seat.
So, BeAGoodMom drove the bikes and the big kids home.
I ended up walking home with Giggles. Which was really the plan all along anyway.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Sounds like a typical trainwreck outing with the family. Fun, but would probably be more successful solo.
LOL, don’t you just love it when what should be like, the simplest thing turns into a huge wreck? This kind of stuff happens to me and D without kids, so I can just imagine what it will be like WITH kids.
Hey as long as there are no broken bones, one can say it was a good day. Good luck on training your boys without training wheels. Let me know how it goes so I can know how to do it when my son gets to that age.