I recently wrote about my son learning to ride a bike (My Son Can Ride a Bike Now! Way to go, Brandon!). He learned to ride on April 30th, and since then he has become a very fast study. The only time that he has fallen was when he attempted to wave at the camera on his second day. Since he is getting better and faster each day, it was inevitable that I had to get my own bike tuned up and ready to go. I took it to Buck's Bikes in Round Rock, and I was pleasantly surprised that they only charged me $10.81 to replace an inner tube, air up the tires, and clean it up.
Anyway, we went for our second ride together last night, and it turned out to be some great exercise and bonding time for us. After the ride, we jumped in the van and measured our distance (two different routes). It turns out that we rode 2.5 miles, which struck me as terrific for a kid who just learned to ride two and a half weeks ago!
During our time together, Brandon made some great comments to me.
"Dad, this biking thing is really starting to heighten my self-esteem." Yes, my nine-year old son really talks this way.
We passed a marshy area with fireflies and some very loud bullfrogs and we stopped to listen for a minute.
"Ahhhhhh, smell that sweet swampy air." said Brandon.
Tonight, we went for a run together, and he came home and made a "Self-Esteem Chart", or SEC for short. It has a bar graph, and a stick figure representation of himself, along with his self-esteem "rating".
If you don't already know where he gets his love of acronyms, you can check out this post I wrote way back in October: Some Suggestions for New Active Rain Abbreviations - Do you LOL often?. For the record, that post was the one that my wife said best summed up my personality and sense of humor. She has known me for 17 years, so she's probably right. In fact, looking back at it, that might have been the first post of mine to get hijacked.
Anyway, for me to get actual exercise on a halfway consistent basis is definitely a step in the right direction (pun intended), and I thank Brandon for getting me out and moving. I look forward to a very active summer, since we are now biking, swimming and running. Time to start working on our first triathlon, right?
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I don't know what sweet swampy air smells like! On your next bike ride, please put some in a bottle and ship it to me. My 11 yr old talks like Brandon. Also, rather than say please, he says PLZ. Must be their generation.