eleven years

In Saskatchewan hanging out with cousins and not camping on this the official start of the camping season. It’s a good weekend not to be camping too, with the rain coming down most of the day yesterday and a stiff west wind cooling down the land today.

As we usually do when we have access to people who are willing to hang out with our kids, Nikki and I put on the shorts and head out for a run. Nik is pushing past 8km now and this is long run day so out the door and headed west into the teeth of the wind. It is hard to run against the wind.

It may be hard to run against the wind, but it feels good to be out and moving. The dog trundling along in the ditch and Nik and I trundling along on the road and the sun on our backs and the wind whistling in our ears and making them ache. I run on the soft shoulder of the gravel road and the arrows created by the tires of the giant machines running night and day to get seeds in the ground so these massive tracts of land can feed us. I imagine these arrows rocketing me forward like the turbo strips in mariokart (one of three video games I have managed to complete), teeth rattling and world blurring and so fast it gets hard to keep myself on the road and not go rocketing into some new oblivion. The good news is this particular oblivion has a nice turtle with a cloud and a fishing hook to set you back on track.

As we move down the road we pass the low spots still underwater and mocking the efforts of those big machines and the flashes of teal and blue from the ducks and the red shoulders and yellow heads of the blackbirds and the aerial acrobatics of the shorebirds entertain us as we move further into the wind.

Eventually we find the far end of what we mean to do and turn tail to race the wind back into town and like the fingers tickling the underside of the bench press bar or the hand pretending to hold the bike seat of the nervous learner the wind pushes us forward imperceptibly and makes us feel faster and stronger. It is easy to run with the wind at our backs.

Eleven years ago right now Nikki and I were at Shekinah promising to love each other freely as the sky loves the bird and doing all the other things that people do on the day they get married and all these years later we’re still running along next to each other. Some days the wind is in our faces and our ears hurt and it’s hard and we move so slowly we might as well shut it down and on other days we find the sun on our faces and the wind nipping at our heels and we fly together without really having to try too hard.

In the wonderful book “Have a little faith” by Mitch Albom, the wife of the venerable Rabbi comments on having been married for 32 wonderful years, they had been married much longer, but 32 of them were wonderful. The Rabbi expands on this:

“I think people expect too much from marriage today” he said. “They expect perfection. Every moment should be a bliss. That´s TV or movies. But that is not the human experience. Like Sarah says, twenty good minutes here, forty good minutes there, it adds up to something beautiful. The trick is when things aren´t so great, you don´t junk the whole thing. It´s okay to have an argument. It´s okay that the other one nudges you a little, bothers you a little. It´s part of being close to someone.

But there is greatness in it. It’s been great, these 11 years and even though we were married as basically kids it seems to have worked out for us.

There’s the parallel and there’s the explanation, but the short version of the long post is I love this woman and I think you should all know about it.

soccer!

First evening of soccer tonight in our sleepy little town. Ben is off and rolling with a U8 team and he claims to love it even if the expression on his face when he’s out there and loping around leans towards terror whenever the ball happens to come too close, but tonight was a big night as Sam and Jo enter the fray in the U6 league for the first time.

The little guys have fancied themselves soccer players for a few years already, tagging along with their big brother and joining in for the warm ups and just being so mad when they couldn’t stay out to play. Tonight was their night and they couldn’t have been more excited. The days have been thoroughly counted and the question every morning “Is our soccer game today?” being the first to greet me each of these last mornings.

Now I have played soccer since my own U6 days and love the sport and so it was only natural when my oldest son chose the beautiful game that I should step into the role of coach. I’ve coached U6 and U8 with Ben and now I return to the U6 coaching ranks to help the boys learn the basics and learn to love the game and I love it.

Now coaching U6 soccer doesn’t have a lot to do with soccer. Sure soccer is the game we are here to play, but it’s really more about having fun, learning to work with teammates and generally running around like kids are supposed to. The soccer component has more to do with teaching kids to not pick up the ball and that those lines on the ground at the edge of the field mean something.

I love coaching U6 soccer and if I am being honest, I am pretty good at it. I know a lot of games, have worked with lots of kids, and have played soccer. This makes me pretty qualified. That, and the fact that I am willing to do it which is apparently the rarest part of my resume.

So anyway, the day is finally here and the answer to this morning’s question was “Yup, it’s today.” This was exciting. Crazy exciting.

So today it’s preschool and a field trip to the fire hall in Water Valley which should be crazy exciting too but still two little minds are on nothing but soccer. Then to the babysitters and with every transition the question bubbles out:

“Is it soccer now?”

No, not until after supper.

And then it’s supper and the boys HAVE to put on shinguards and soccer socks NOW and then out the door and we’re there and spikes on and then warm up and some quick teaching (No Braeden, you can’t pick up the ball, put it down Braeden!) and then it’s game time.

Sammy in the net to start and Jo out in the field and playing with reckless abandon unlike his teammates who play with abandon, as in they abandon the game to pick grass or go and see what that corner cone is about. So little Jo is in there and digging and an oversized 5 year old sends our undersized four year old flying and a little grimace of pain and “I’m ok dad.” and he’s back in it. Sammy bounces in the net and stays in front of the ball when they kick it at him which is impressive all by itself in U6.

Sammy joins the field and runs and kicks with a determination that flares up at times in our generally goofy Sam bam. He digs and kicks and stays focussed on the game and he gets knocked down but he’s up again and going and Jonah has a partial breakaway except the big kids catch him and he’s flying again and tells this story, focussing on the lack of tears, many times after the game.

“I got knocked down pretty good there didn’t I dad?”

Yup.

“But I didn’t cry, did I dad?”

Nope.

If there were a score board at the game it would not have been pretty but there isn’t and it is, in many ways, a thing of beauty, watching these kids run.

At the end two flushed boys want to keep going and I have to drag them off the field so the next team can practice and they climb, retelling tales of valor, into the truck for the trip home.

Of course we need ice cream because that is the thing a dad does for kids who play games, especially important games like the first one ever so we stop for some cold, creamy treats on the way home and then home and bed with promises that there will be another game on Thursday.

“How many sleeps is that dad?”

They’re excited already.

So am I.

ping pong

I was a ping pong champion once. For real.

I talked about RJC in the last post and way back in those halcyon days there was a group of young men who fancied “table tennis.” Now I don’t know if you grew up where I grew up but we had a big green table in our basement and we had some little round paddles and we called that game “ping pong.”

These gentlemen did not appreciate that name as it did not befit the “dignity of the game” or something. I might be making that part up. Honestly I’m not entirely sure anymore.

All I do remember is that they HATED it when I called it ping pong. So I did. A lot.

The leader of this group was a young man with remarkable ping pong skills and a special paddle (I can almost here him now: “It’s a ‘racquet’ Jon!”) that he carried around in a little zipper bag with a shoulder strap. It was rumored to be worth over $200. I actually laughed out loud when I first heard this.

He was very proud of his skills and not too fond of my taunting and eventually he had had enough and in a fit of adolescent indignation he approached me one day:

“Jon! I have had enough of your bandying about of insolent names for our noble game! I submit this gauntlet to you as a challenge of your skill at table tennis gamesmanship.”*

What he meant was that he wanted to play ping pong.

I, being a noble gentleman and always up for anything once agreed reluctantly and the BIG MATCH was on.

It was a bit of a big deal. This young gentleman was the undisputed champion of the school and I hadn’t played in months and the “table tennis” crowd was very excited about my impending doom.

So we crowd into the third floor lounge and I grab one of the school paddles that are made all out of hard plastic and my opponent unzipped his case to the oohs and aahs of the admiring fans.

He explained how the game was to be played and I told him “Yeah, yeah, I’ve played ping pong before.”

And he proceeded to attempt to kill me.

Now the part of the plan that he hadn’t counted on and frankly neither had I until just that moment was that there is not a lot of smacktalk in the table tennis world. Now the world of ping pong is a bit of a different story. I once played an entire game with my little brother announcing the score in reverse as went from comfortably winning to coming completely unglued.

“No, I’m pretty sure I have 11 and you have 5” he would say and my teeth would grind and my veins would bulge. Made me mental. You can learn something from little brothers I suppose.

Well, seeing as I was playing ping pong and not table tennis I started to let him have it a bit. He scored a few very easy points at first because he was, inarguably, better at this than me. His fatal error was trying too hard to put it away and missing the table completely. I took this as my window to take the taunting to another level and the poor young man came unhinged.

By the end his aim had drifted upward from the table and the target was more in the region of my face and most of his shots were missing my nose by inches. I came away with an array of ping pong ball sized welts and a victory.

I immediately announced my retirement from competitive ping pong as I was so clearly superior to all of the other players in the school. It was awesome.

The table tennis crowd was stunned and a rematch was immediately demanded.

Fortunately I had already retired.

…

*Not how he actually talked.

redshirts

Sam and Jonah are growing on up. They love playschool and all the great stuff they do there. We now have more paintings and random things glued together and envelopes full of snipped up something-or-others than anyone can reasonably be expected to hang on to.

So the boys love playschool and they love their teachers and they love their friends at playschool and they are doing well there. One of their teachers told us that when kids are being left out or don’t know who to play with they steer them to Sam and Jo and they always find space in their game for all comers.

Made my heart ache with pride to hear that. If they only ever figure one thing out in this life that should be the one; treat people well and make room for them in your life.

Sam and Jo, first day of school

Sam and Jo turn five in October. This means they are eligible to go to Kindergarten next fall. This little fact has likely generated more discussion in our little house than the entire Conservative Party’s tenure including the F35 fiasco and this is a formidable amount of discussion as we can’t seem to stop ourselves talking about Mr Harper and his reign of terror government.

See Sammy and Jo are doing well at playschool and Jo in particular is pretty keen with the numbers and the letters and the getting things right but Sam? Sam has this drumbeat that he hears that seems to keep him on a different rhythm.

Sammy is his own man and always will be and I am thankful for that, but it makes it awfully hard to tell what he’s actually good at. Sammy does what he likes and so if he doesn’t like what you want him to do then good luck to you. Good luck getting Sammy to count to ten when he wants to play with blocks. Good luck getting Sam to write an S when he wants to draw a princess. Good luck getting Sammy to do just about anything he isn’t keen on at the moment.

This is the kid who always, ALWAYS has a headache or a sore tummy when it is time to clean his room. This is the kid who told his uncle that he doesn’t like to put his shoes on by himself when he’s on holiday. This is a kid who is very, VERY good at getting people to help him do things.

Long story just a little shorter, we don’t really know if Sammy is ready for the big K. We both suspect he’d be fine and Jonah will almost certainly be fine but really what’s the rush? These guys were born late in the year, they were a bit premature, and they’re small. So why not wait?

Hip parents call it Redshirting. Holding your kid (or in our case, kids) back a year to give them a leg up in school. The term stems from University sports where students can suspend a year of eligibility on a school team and the whole idea is pretty controversial.

You don’t have to look to far on the ol’ interwebs to find a plethora of voices arguing for and against it and they all seem to have a point.

I guess what it comes down to for us is kids seem to have a developmental advantage if they are a little older in elementary school and kids seem to have a social advantage if they are bigger in middle school so we hope we’re doing this right but we are putting red shirts on the boys next year.

My own life saw me (also an October baby) enter school at four and then repeat grade two during a big move from Canada to the US and from french emersion to english school and it became a big move from treading water academically to flourishing and that seems like some kind of evidence to me.

Many of the voices arguing against are those arguing against removing challenge from our kids lives. “I WANT my kid to be challenged” they loudly profess and I suppose there is merit to that but I find that life will provide challenge no matter what steps we take early on.

This may sound strange coming from a guy who opposes helicopter parenting but I kind of think my goal when it comes to my kids is to take away as many unnecessary hurdles as I can from my kid’s lives.

Now I am not normally a person to put his foot down, kind of the opposite in, fact it’s a weakness of mine, but I put my foot down when it came to naming our kids. It helped that Nikki agreed with me because otherwise she likely would have just stepped on my toes, but I feel pretty strongly about “normal” kids names with conventional spellings.

My kids already have a last name guaranteed to get them called “Oldfart Wiener” as soon as their classmates become sophisticated enough to “invent” this clever nickname (because really, you are the ONLY one to ever think of changing Olfert to Oldfart. How amazingly clever of you), why should I make it any harder? So I pushed for names that would not stand out in a crowd and plus Benny, Sammy and Jo are super cute nicknames and nicknames are important when name choosing.

The thing about life is you are human and so am I and we have human relationships and what that means is that things will not always go smoothly. This brings me to the conclusion that despite any advantages I give my kids they will struggle at some point or other. The end game for me is that I don’t know why I would put speed bumps on the road when the concrete crash barriers are already in place. My kids will still have to find a way past the barriers and I will allow them the space and provide the tools to help them do that, but I just don’t see why I need to make it any harder.

Redshirts it is.

keep on running

Running again tonight and just a little farther than last week. Just crossing the invisible but highly tangible 10 km mark that seems to separate the super casual from the ever so slightly less casual runner.

So out the door for 10 Kilometers on a cool and rainy evening in early May.

The neat part about running were I live is what you get to see. Tonight it was a herd of about 40 or so Elk just North and a bit West of us. They ran like fools from an old golden retriever who was trotting peacefully at my side but I suppose the long white flags fluttering from the rapidly retreating back ends of the whitetails keeping lookout might have spooked them.

And I saw sign of spring #432 – Mountain Blue Birds.

It was a pair of these little bird on the fenceline and like it always is, it was the male that caught my eye. If you’ve never had the pleasure, a male mountain bluebird is a piece of the clear July sky sitting on a fencepost on a grey May evening. A blue so true it seems it must have been worked on in photoshop or shot with a special filter to draw out the color.

This pair bumped along the fenceline in front of me for about a kilometer, keeping my mind occupied with a failed attempt tocapture the essence of that blue in our halting language.

Thankfully they joined me on the uphill to pull my mind away from the huffing of my lungs and the strange little fatigues that seem to find you on the long hills.

“Hmm,” goes my brain, “there seems to be some discomfort on the outside of our right shin. Yes, there definitely is something there! You should give ALL of your attention to that!”

“Shut up brain!” I cleverly reply and turn up my ipod.

…

My boys have decided to become runners. Ben has been out with Nikki once or twice and those crazy long legs of his can carry him a kilometer or two with what seems like no effort at all. Of course the boys want in so we went and got some little runners and they run down to camp and back and “train.” Sammy comes up to Nikki on the weekend after a few short laps and says: “Mom, when you’re running you have to listen to your heart.”

Why’s that Sammy?

“Because” comes the earnest reply “your head keeps telling you to stop, but your heart tells you to keep going.”

Smiled at that a little. Not sure where that bit of wisdom bubbled up from but the boy has a point.

So it’s about Kilometer four and a half when my brain gets after me to shut it down. See the downside of running where I live is that it’s all hills. Really, no matter which way you turn it’s hills and this means running uphill which is terrible but it also means running downhill which is great. It was at the tail end of the uphill that I forgot Sammy’s words of wisdom and my brain started getting the best of me.

“Uhg, just stop already, I mean really, what are you trying to prove?”

Fair point.

“I mean really, you could be eating yummy food, you could be doing things with your kids or any number of things that would be more evolutionary useful.”

Also a fair point.

And then the ol’ ticker throws in it’s two cents, “Just six and half kilometers.”

Nope, can’t do it, too far.

“Just six kilometers and four hundred and fifty meters”

Still too far.

“Just six kilomters and four hundred meters”

You’ve got to admire the heart, it isn’t clever but it is relentless.

I suppose one should be thankful for that, the relentlessness of one’s own heart. It keeps you going in many ways. Now, I am not a disciplined man but I have found some drive in this running business. It helps that Nikki reminds me to run. It helps that my children see what we are working towards and copy it. It helps that Sammy reminds me to listen to my heart.

So I will try to listen to Sammy. I will try to listen to my heart.

signs

I am arguably the most talented sleeper I know. When I go to sleep I go to sleep. My wife complains that she goes to bed hours before me, tosses and turns for a while and then I saunter in, plunk my melon on the pillow and fire up the ol’ chainsaw within minutes. Makes her crazy.

And I can sleep anywhere. Sitting up, hard mattress, crappy pillow, no pillow, no problem. I go to sleep and I wake up in the morning. It’s a gift I’ve grown to appreciate more as I realize just how rare it is.

Yup, I am a pretty talented sleeper… most of the time.

…

This time of year is a crazy one when your job title happens to be Camp Director. Pair that with a string of funerals and some illness and you end up feeling like the eight ball is up on the horizon somewhere and you’re left chasing.

And wouldn’t you know it, the darndest thing about having a job you’re invested in is that you get so darned invested. So this time of year finds me fretting about camper numbers and where we will find a cook and any number of things on my to do list.

Sign #431 that summer is approaching? Workmares.

I wake up in a panic because nobody has rung the bell and the cooks are setting out breakfast or because there are campers here on a Saturday and what do we do with them or because I am being reprimanded by some faceless figure for not being able to increase camper numbers. That last one is the scariest.

So you end up working more than you probably should and forgetting what a weekend feels like and taking breaks from things that bring you joy like working on your blog and hanging out with your kids and you know what? This isn’t helping. The workmares increase in frequency as my working hours increase in frequency and it’s a key sign I need to take a step back but man that can be hard to do.

I care so much about this place, this program. I believe so strongly in it’s power and value that it almost seems crazy to me that everyone doesn’t see how valuable it is but the point of this post isn’t supposed to be about Valaqua or even about camp, more about balance.

Balance is a tough thing. Finding a balance between feeling like a success professionally and as a father and a husband has been a big challenge for me in these last years.

When I became a dad, I had no idea what was coming. I imagine most of us don’t have a clue otherwise we might not jump into this game, but the magic of hindsight has shown me how much I really didn’t know.

I didn’t realize how much of an impact my kids would have on my career. It didn’t connect that I would have to limit my work hours in order to be a good dad. I have had to place limits on what I am willing to give to work. I’ve had to realize that my job is, no matter how much I invest in it, just a job and I will likely have more than one of them but I only ever get one family. I have had to admit that there are things I cannot do and that has been very, very hard for me.

So this spring finds me trying to take a step back. A step back towards joy. A step back into balance. A step back towards feeling tranquil and rested in the morning.

The good news on that front is that I am a pretty talented sleeper.

the rain

I’ve been writing a lot and posting very little lately. I am a man who can handle loose ends and I suppose the half dozen unfinished or unpolished pieces that are sitting in the queue but just aren’t right yet are a byproduct of that. I suppose I find myself reaching for a certain standard that maybe I have never achieved.  A guy needs to aspire to something right?

Today’s offering, I hope you enjoy.

…

I love the rain.

This is a strange confession for a Camp Director because the whole camp thing is so much easier in the sun but I do love the rain.

Growing up the summer rain was no barrier to heading outside. In the heat of summer all it took was a swimsuit and you were out the door to run and slide on your knees in the grass and race twig boats down the gutter. This was a place where the rain was warm and the air was warmer and our sinewy young bodies made all the heat needed to be comfortable bare-shouldered and wet with rain in our hair and eyes.

Rain means something different now. The first rains of spring are a thing of renewal and one of my favorite times of year but it’s more work to play out there. The early spring rain in Western Canada prickles your skin and raises goosebumps and shivers and calls for raincoats and fleece layers to properly enjoy.

I do enjoy it though. Love it in fact. I love these first rains that still seem to threaten to turn to snow and that wash away the grime of winter and call forth the intrepid crocuses and the draw out the green in the grass. I love the earthy smell that is to me as home made chicken soup and a good hug; somehow wholesome and renewing and comforting all at once.

These showers renew the earth for another growing season and carry away the last vestiges of snow from the shady places and make the creek across from the house turn, for a day or two, into a torrent intent on carrying away winter in the most expedient manner possible.

One of my favourite camp memories involves a long hot dry summer with no rain in what seemed like months and the director being gone for the evening and sitting at supper when the sky opened up. The counsellors shared a silent and knowing look and then rose as one and headed for the door. For a giddy 15 minutes the entire camp community ran around in the rain. We returned, gasping and soaked to our meals with memories to carry away. I hope my kids have the chance to make memories like that.

Now it’s time to head downstairs and look for raincoats and figure out what is too small and what might take it’s place and what needs to be procured for the spring that is suddenly upon us. Then I think we might go play in the rain.

an ordinary day

Another unusual day made ordinary.

We said goodbye to Grandpa Brown yesterday. We interred my Grandfather in the morning to the wonderful protest of a nesting red tailed hawk and the distant honks of geese returning to the land and with swans soaring overhead. A beautiful day to trespass upon the rusty peace of a small country graveyard.

Then food and visiting and stories with cousins and uncles and aunts from far and near.

I wrote earlier about Grandpa being a man with music in his soul and so the service to send him off had music at it’s centre as well. My cousins Tom and Kim sang an incredible duet, a group of sons and grandsons sang some of the old Gospel 8 songs, our boys sang “In the Bulb” one more time and the whole family came together for a song. In between there were great stories and tributes and thoughts on passing and growing old. It was beautiful.

Then more food and more visiting and more stories and a long day and a tired trip home but part of me is still aching for more. It is somewhat dismaying that this group of cousins and uncles and aunts, many of whom live “just down the road” meaning anywhere from one to three hours driving in the nomenclature of western Canada, don’t get together more. But then there is work and kids and life and the general sense of the busy that seem to keep us apart and each running on our own treadmill and staring at our own toes each usual day.

Today we return heavily to the usual. A day regimented by school and work and babysitters. It’s a welcome change after what seems like an eternity of family and visiting and mourning but also a bit of a sense of letdown to be returning to the every day. Funny how a person can resent the rhythms of life and yet miss them so desperately when they are gone.

I hope that’s it for funerals for a while. I’m down to one lonely grandma now but she is sharp and strong and I expect to be able to chuckle at her unintended messages on our answering machine for at least a few years still. I expect to visit her and have her laugh at the boy’s antics and have small gifts and chocolate to spoil them with and to see her lovely smile and in that I hope I am not disappointed.

Family is a powerful and formative thing and I come out of my recent experiences squeezing this family to my heart tighter than ever.

I am so thankful for strong faith, strong hearts, and the strong bonds of family.

for Grandpa

Way too many tributes on this little blog these days. Our little troop is feeling right polished up when it comes to funeral going.

My Grandpa Brown drew his last in this world of ours last night. We came home from saying goodbye to Oma in Manitoba to find a gothic, skeletal parody of the man I knew as Grandpa occupying the bed where Grandpa should have been. Grandpa hasn’t really known me for a few months now and that paired with the drugs to help with pain made it a hard thing, visiting him to say goodbye.

He was agitated and kept asking for help and could I help him? Please, he needed help and nothing I could do but sit and hold his hand.

It was holding his hand that got me. I started to think about the things those hands had done. The cows they had milked, the fields they had worked, and the children they had raised. Those hands built a life. They built a farm, a home, and a legacy.

So I sat there, examining hands that have been working in this world for almost a century and memories started to flood in.

I remember my Grandpa’s whistle. I think if you tapped the Brown family tree when the weather is warm and the sap is running you would likely find music dripping into the bucket. Grandpa had a most impressive whistle, complete with vibrato and amazing range. A Roger Whitaker worthy whistle and he used to whistle while he milked the cows and while he walked around the yard. He whistled in his truck and to his horses.

He used to sing too. Grandpa used to sing everywhere he went and in fact has a few albums to his credit with the “Gospel Eight.” His kids sing and play and so do lots of the grands and in fact a number of both have made money at it at one point or another.

Grandpa was a believer in hard work and when my brother and I stayed a month with Grandma and Grandpa while our parents were in Africa we were expected to believe in these things too. This meant dairy farmer hours and sleeping in past about 6:30 being completely unacceptable no matter what we had been up to the night before. Needless to say this was not even remotely popular at the time but the memories of helping with the milking and early breakfast with Grandpa are precious now.

So as I sat by the bed with a Grandpa who was ready to leave and not sure how and needing help I started to tell him stories. I told him stories of his life at the farm, whistling to the cows, singing to the cats, and walking with his old dog Ginger and as I talked he settled and put his head back on his pillow. When I asked him if he remembered this or that: the cows, the milking parlor, his big horses, he nodded with a look that betrayed bewilderment and a bit of awe.  He seemed to cling to these stories of his life brought back by a memory not yet undermined by old age and drugs. It gave him a moment of peace or at least distraction and I am so thankful that I could offer him at least that much.

Five days later he is gone and as I now know better than I have any interest in knowing; even though you think it won’t be too bad because it was a long life and a good one and he was sick and ready to go it still hurts, losing him. I find tears for Grandpa today and a few moments of pause for the life of a man without whom I would not be.

We miss you already Grandpa.

bikes!

Spring has sprung here in our corner of the world. The days have warmed and stretched in the way that spring days are wont to do when you live north of, well, most of the rest of the world and now it’s hard to think about doing the dishes after supper because I just want to go outside with my kids and play in the puddles.

If there is anything better than the lingering sunlight of a spring evening in Canada I haven’t found it yet.

So this evening, with supper finished and the dishes cleared, our little family poured out the door into the soft and muddy world of a Valaqua springtime.

My boys take one look at Nikki and I and the question snaps up at us “Can we ride our bikes?”

Bikes it is.

Ben figured out a two wheeler last year and loves to cruise around. Sammy and Jonah have “run bikes.” Little bikes without pedals that they stand over and then propel with their feet.

We got the run-bikes last year and the boys loved them right away. It helps that Sammy’s is pink. Kid loves pink.

It didn’t take long for shuffling around to not be enough and the boys soon discovered that these bikes work just as well off of the road and then the discovery of how fun it is to go downhill.

So this evening they pull bikes and helmets out of the shed and tromp excitedly up the driveway and Jonah asks “Dad, can we go all the way to the top?”

And so we do.

And the boys line up at the top of the hill and point their wheels in the direction that God intended little boys to ride their bikes: down.

One by one they cut loose. Ben first, then Jonah, and then Sammy. Ben leaves with brakes held tight and inching down the hill. A moment later Jonah picks up his feet and leaves in a blur, passing Ben and away speed wobbles and all. Sammy walks down the steep bit and then lets go near the bottom, legs spread wide and sailing.

It was a whooping, giggling kind of fun for those three little boys and when we surrendered to darkness and homework and bath time three little boys with skunk stripes of mud up their backs and cold cold hands happily put their bikes away and tromped into the house knowing there will be many more evenings to come.

Now I have always loved bikes. I like to ride cross country trails and last summer I did a day on a downhill rig at Kickinghorse and that was pretty fun but I don’t think I get as much joy from my bike as my kids did this evening.

I am not sure when I forgot to feel the deep joy of spinning wheels for the sake of it, but I am glad I have a few people in my life to remind me.

Bikes are fun.