first bike

We had fully intended for Santa to bring a tricycle for Christmas this year. It was on the list. We found one that we really liked where Dennis can reach the pedals easily, a Radio Flyer that's more of a miniature bike with training wheels. But we started seeing less and less of it and worried that it might get discontinued like the other things we've put off getting for him and then lost out on. So Santa came a little early. Like today.

We reasoned with ourselves, of course. We can get it now and give it to him for Christmas. We could put it up and wait. But what if he's not as easygoing in 3 months? What if it's harder to teach him to ride it then? Hey, it's rated 18 months and up, and he'll be 18 months old on Sunday. What if not giving it to him now puts him behind other tricycle-riding toddlers? And won't it be nicer weather now for him to ride than after Christmas? He saw it in the shopping cart, anyway. He petted it all the way through the store. He knows we have it. We'll have to go ahead and give it to him.

The only good thing about this? The man who got it down from the ceiling rack at the store looked just like Santa Claus. He could have been Santa Claus. So Santa gave Dennis his first ever bicycle today, September 8, 2008, no special occasion whatsoever except for that of a clearance price and eager parents.

I am happy to report that he LOVES it. He scoots it along, climbs on and off, pushes it around his room... And he even pushed the pedals down with his feet a couple of times and made it move. So I guess we shouldn't have waited. He's already learning how to ride. So there. All that justification we went through! Looks like we made the right decision. Maybe he'll learn to ride it soon.

Also today he learned that he can grab Mommy's leg and pick it up and make her walk in the direction of the kitchen. This is especially helpful when he thinks it's mealtime and I don't necessarily agree. But tonight we got supper ready before he was ready to eat it. He was napping and we woke him up and brought him into the kitchen and he was pretty unhappy about it. We set him in the high chair and he cried. David handed him his sippy cup and he threw it down. I handed him a plate of spaghetti and he started to throw it down until he saw what it was. At that point he set it nicely on his high chair tray, stopped crying, and shoved a handful of noodles into his mouth. He was all smiles after that. He had a nice bath, which is nearly always the sequel to a spaghetti meal since orange is not his natural color. We played with the cars and then he went happily to bed. He was in a much better mood today than he was all weekend, so maybe whatever it was that was wrong has passed. Thank goodness!