Tuesday, February 14, 2006

St. Jude's Trike-A-Thon and Lessons Learned

Friday was the much-anticipated Trike-A-Thon that Max had been gathering donations for! Rob had pulled out Max's teeny little bike, dusted it off, raised the seat, added air to the wee tires. That hog was ready to race. The helmet was given a shining and we were off to the event! James accompanied me so the wee beast couldn't destroy anything and we were set to have some fun. The gym was roped off into a big circuit, with the center roped off for the littler kids. Right off the bat my little athlete was warming up by running laps around the gym. Can you tell we've been cooped up too long?? He ran the perimeter of the room about three times, came up to the bleachers, took a few deep breaths and was off again. When it came to ride, he rocked! He was having so much fun humming the Mario Kart theme song to himself, I'm sure he thought he was part of the game! They broke for a short time to relish a couple donut holes and a juice box. Then came the announcement. One of Max's teachers directed the moms and dads to grab their child's bike and head out to the track with it. She proceeded to climb on the tricycle she had with her and started peddling it. At first, I was just frightened... then, I noticed the other parents starting to gear up for the event... I don't want to let my little Max down by being the fuddy-dud parent that won't participate. So, I did what I had to do. I grabbed his amazingly little bicycle and hunkered down on it. It took me a minute to tuck my knees behind my ears in order to reach the peddles, but once I had my feet positioned, I was OFF! Man, did I cruise... I flew past those other moms, all the while trying to ignore the searing pain of a bike seat inching up my behind. The look on Max's face was priceless! It went from sheer horror (What the heck are you DOING??) to delight! I was so proud of myself for being able to breeze past the other parents who somehow couldn't get the hang of peddling, I felt confident that I was like, THE coolest mom there! I made it around and unfolded myself and stood up. The training wheels looked a little off. I kicked at them and found that one or both of them had become a little bent.... hmmm. Max seemed to be able to ride ok on the second set, but I felt a little bad that I had messed up the wheels. I turned to James and said, "Maybe I shouldn't have rode on the bike?". He looked at me like I had grapefruits coming out of my ears and said "MAYBE? you shouldn't have rode on the bike????". He instructed me to look at the bike and then look at myself. Maybe's not an option here. Ok, ok, lesson learned. Just because all the other moms are doing it, doesn't mean I have to jump off that bridge too. And, just because I am so astonished that I CAN ride the bike, doesn't mean I SHOULD ride the bike.

In summary, Max's first charitable experience went great. He did an awesome job, even on his bent up bike. You rock little man!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, looks like I may be able to leave a comment now, so I'll say how much I've been enjoying all of your articles, and this was great too! Keep blogging! Tell James he's full of prunes! Anything any other mom can do, you can do better! He'll outgrow those training wheels soon anyway!

Jimmy James said...

Thanks a lot for the real positive light Cathy, and "grammie" if that's even your real pseudonym.I thought it was Mom. I don't even know what "full of prunes" mean. I only assume it has somthing to do with mass fiber...

But the highlight of the Trike-a-Thon. was by Max on his billionth circuit, while taking a corner at nearly 5mph, and breaking into a power slide that he rode his bike out of, it was the most professional riding I'd seen at the track all day...