the inaugural ride

We were pounced upon well before 8 AM, something we haven't had to experience lately because we've been keeping him awake until 11:30 when he begs one of us to put him to bed. Not great parenting, I know, but the resulting sleeping in was nice while it lasted. This morning he climbed up between us in bed and said "it's time to go ride my bike outside now" and I said it wasn't time yet because it was still time to sleep. He said "no, it's sunny outside" and I agreed but said it was still time to sleep. He said "BUT IT'S SUNNY OUT THERE--LOOK!" and snatched up the shade and pointed and said "see?". We got up. Since it's Father's Day, I made biscuits, sausage, and scrambled eggs with cheese, and we tried to get Dennis to concentrate on eating to no avail. David had to leave for work and Dennis was still working on his food.

About noon, we headed outdoors to see if we could find a neighbor with an air pump to inflate his bike tires (again he told me it didn't need air in the tires because it was perfect and didn't need anything). Everyone was busy, so he rode to the marina on the dirt road with me trotting close beside him. He asked me to let go as we were heading downhill, so he had his first little bike wreck just at the corner where we'd turn to go the marina. He flew off the bike and landed on his hands and knees, and I ran and scooped him up and brushed him off and waited for his reaction. He burst out laughing and said "whoo! I had a little accident, didn't I, Mommy?". He did scrape his knee, but he didn't discover that til 2 hours later (and of course whined about it then and needed a band-aid). The marina wasn't yet open, so Dennis very happily played with the sand toys in the sand out front of the store. Some folks drove up to launch their boat (and in retrospect, I'm pretty sure the folks were Gran's neighbors in town), and Dennis told them "I'm having a wonderful day at the beach!". When the marina opened, they very graciously inflated Dennis' bike tires, and I dragged him away screaming that he wanted to play in the sand some more. He was so hot and red-faced that I though we should go in for a while and cool off, and I tried my best to convince him to swim, but he didn't really want to.

I was just about to put him down for his nap when I heard from Allison that she wanted to meet us for supper at San Marcos, so we skipped the nap and got ready to go into town. I decided we'd go ahead and stop by Wal-Mart to look for bike reflectors while we were waiting on her (no bike reflectors there). It turned out to be too early for the dinner hours at San Marcos (they re-open at 5), so we met at Burger King instead much to Dennis' disappointment. He did insist on showing her his new bike, so we took it with us and he climbed on it and gave her a little demo of how he looked when he was riding.

He crashed after we got home and I intended to let him nap for an hour, but I couldn't get him to get back up. It's going to be an early morning tomorrow! The highlight of my day: handing him my iphone in the Wal-Mart bathroom to keep him occupied while I, um, attended to business, only to have him laughingly turn it to the camera setting and snap photos of me on the toilet. I was laughing in the photos, even though I was trying my best to look stern, and I was looking at them later in the car as I deleted the not-G-rated ones and Dennis piped up from the backseat "are you looking at those toilet pictures I took of you, Mommy? That was funny!". Nice.