AJ was bushed from our expedition yesterday and slept late (well, late for him), which means until 7 a.m. And the two of us lounged around in our pajamas a little longer than was seemly on a Tuesday. We finally got going and headed out in the morning drizzle (goodbye again, summer! It was nice seeing you yesterday!) in search of a new bike for AJ. I’ve been looking for a good used bike for him, but I haven’t been able to find one. And now even I have to admit that he is far too large for the 16 inch wheels on the bike he’s been riding, which is the first one he ever ride, minus its original training wheels.
We headed first for the Evil Toy Conglomerate, which I knew would have a large selection of small bikes. It did, but it also had no employees anywhere in sight. I hauled one of the bikes off the rack myself, but it was so poorly assembled (the brakes were essentially non-functional), that I was pretty sure I didn’t want to buy anything there.
We headed next to a bike store I’d noticed on my way to yoga, but it proved to be closed one day a week: Tuesday. So we headed back toward T@rget. Our local incarnation of that store has always had an exceptionally poor selection of bikes, so I hadn’t even bothered to look there. But they have recently renovated, and low and behold, the bike section had doubled and there was one shiny black and red and silver Schwinn that AJ loved and which, I felt sure, would pass the Mr. Spy “But is it stupid looking?” test. Readers, we bought it.
And then it started to pour.
Fortunately, we ran into some old friends in the bike aisle on our way out. D and AJ have known each other since age 2, when they became fast friends at preschool, and they’ve been friends ever since. And his mom is one of the first friends I made after moving here. Unfortunately, since D lives in a different town and they are both busy with sports and assorted other things, it is very hard for us to get together during the school year. But we always see a lot of them in the summer. AJ had just been asking about calling them, so it seemed fateful that we bumped into them today. D’s mom helped me load AJ’s bike into the back of the car, which turned out to be a two-person job, and we took the boys to the diner for lunch, where they acted very silly and we all caught up on the last nine months. We have plans to get together again on Friday, if the weather is nice, to take the boys to the park.
After lunch, D came back to our house to play for a while and I attempted to get some work done while sounds of PacMan were drifting up through the floor. AJ then went to his first flag football practice, which he’s been looking forward to for weeks, and as soon as he got home, he was invited to another friend’s house to play and for dinner. For a day on which we had nothing planned, AJ’s having a pretty great time.
Next week we launch into our first week of camp. Mostly AJ is just doing camp in the morning instead of all day. Between that and the absence of football practice looming in July, as it was last year, we’re hoping this will feel a little more like summer. We’ve been enjoying our free time.
What’s on for tomorrow? Who knows? We may take in a movie in the morning, as it’s supposed to be rainy. Our local movie theater shows second-run kids movies for free every Tuesday and Wednesday morning in the summer (I’m sure they cover any costs with their concessions). I’m hoping a trip to the library will be in there somewhere. And if it ever stops raining, we will definitely have to try out the new bike.
Posted by harri3tspy 
