Skate Park

The kids got to try out a brand new skate park for PE last week.  In the above picture, you can see a skeleton on a bike, I mean, Brishen.  He's really not as emaciated as it seems.  It does look funny, though, from that angle.  He does eat, you know.  A lot.  I double what I used to cook, and we rarely have leftovers.  He orders from the grown-up menu at restaurants (totally messing with our "out to eat" budget).  He's had pizza and soda more times than I'd care to mention in the last too-busy-to-worry-about-the-vitamin-and-whole-grain-intake-of-my-kids month.

And then there's Basia.  Yes, that is a new helmet on her head.  I finally had to break down and buy a separate helmet for "big hair" days.  She has one helmet that fits her head when she has cornrows or very low ponytails and now a new one (no pink flowers or Barbie designs for her, thank you very much) for the days when her hair has more bulk.  It was either that or hope the thick hair twists would properly cushion her skull.  Is this a common issue in the African-American community?  And do those "toddlers in tiaras" have special helmets for their big hair bike-riding adventures, too?  I have mousy, thin hair and grew up in the days when helmets were left to the coal miners, so this is all new to me.

Our pack of homeschool hoodlums looked like something from the set of ET as they biked in a line around the park.  It's cute to see them all together like that.  

What's not cute is noticing that your giant 13-year-old is still riding his little boy bike at the same time you notice your small 8-year-old is riding her even-smaller preschool-sized bike.  I told the big one to confiscate his dad's unridden one in the shed and give his current one to his little sister.  

That would have been a beautiful plan, if only it had worked.  

The papa bike needs some TLC, and the big brother bike is still a size or two above what the short-legged little sister can handle. 

I think it's time to hit some garage sales.  

Or I could invite some bike-shop expert to the next park day, where he could properly evaluate each kid and tell us the proper size of bike that each proper child should properly have, at which time each and every proper parent would realize how improper their own child's bike is for their current, proper needs.  Then we could line the bikes up at one end of the path and the kids at the other end and let them all race to see who could make it to their dream bike-formerly their taller best friend's bike, of course.  I know that Basia could beat them all if she was racing toward the coolest big (boy) bike in the pile, so we'd score big, there.  Brishen would be the only one tall enough to need to run toward the old lady bike with the wicker basket (possibly with a dog named "Toto" it in), mistakenly left in the line-up by an old lady (witch??) using the restroom facilities at just the wrong moment, so, he, too, would score big.  Yeah, that's the ticket!  

EXCEPT

I don't really want a dog named "Toto."

Why must none of my plans work?