Easy Rider

It has been perfect weather here in Houston this weekend (and we never have perfect weather here). Beautiful blue skies, and it was cool enough to go outside and enjoy it. We pretty much moved the whole family outside all weekend.

Jason and I had been noticing that JR wasn't really using the training wheels on his bike, so we thought we'd take them off and see what happened. Besides, with JR's Chinese heritage you'd think bike riding would be instinctual. As Jason put it, "the child's been on the back of more bicycles than most kids ever have". So, of course, before he can even think about riding the bike he has to get on all the safety gear. I would just like to stop a minute here and ask the fine people at Disney if they could tone down the show Lou and Lou: Safety Patrol. Aren't we safe enough? And also, my husband and I are really tired of our son giving us "safety violations" every time we turn around. Anyway, since we're living in Houston and not Beijing, we own every safety pad you can find to cover your body...And JR was insistent on wearing them all! Thanks again, Safety Patrol. Here he is: helmet, elbow pads, wrist guards, and knee pads. He hit his foot on the pedal when he was getting on the bike and actually told us he needed some "foot pads". I was telling him how when "Mommy and Daddy were little we didn't have any pads, and when we fell off our bikes we might hurt ourselves, but we just got back on the bike and kept on going." He just couldn't believe how bad we had it back in the "olden times". But, the good news is, that the riding without training wheels was actually very easy and non eventful. The first few times he tried he would just let go and fall off when he saw that Jason wasn't holding onto him. But, he got the hang of it really fast and is now a no training wheels bike rider. Here are a few pictures and a video of the rider in action.

Babies enjoying the bike show.