My daughter and I went on a bike ride the other day. We were very excited. We were planning to go on the bike trail which runs beside a lake. Now, as some of you know, I got my bike as a Mother’s Day gift and have only been riding it for a month. My daughter was being very helpful. She pulled the bike out from the garage to the sidewalk. I have a basket on my bike, so my daughter filled it up with the necessities; water, binoculars, snacks, notebook, pencils, this week’s happy meal toy from Kung Fu Panda…there was hardly any room for my cell phone.
We take our bikes up to the bike trail and it seems very promising. I tell her we are going to ride slowly in one direction for 15 minutes and turn around and come back….Viola! 30 minutes of pleasurable exercise….
“O.K. Mommy!” she smiles and adjusts her helmet.
So here we go…on to a Mother-daughter bike ride, just like the ones you see on the feminine hygiene commercials…we will be able to chat and enjoy riding among nature.-
No! This kid races down the bike trail like a bat out of hell! She bikes as if she is racing Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France and she is in first place! Before I had figured out the gears on my bike, (is 6 the high or low gear? and what do you need low gear for again?) my child is nothing but a dot of color three miles ahead of me! I try desperately to catch up to her, I am peddling faster than I thought I could. All I could think of is , “Oh great, I am going to have a stroke out here and I will be alone. How long will I lay out here before my kid realizes I am missing. If she doesn’t need a snack or a ride to her friends house, I could be laying here for hours! All I could think of is the paper would carry the story, “Chunky, over-aged, woman dies while riding a bike, found clutching Tai Lung, a character from Disney’s latest movie up to her ear. The woman, in her delirium, must have thought it was her cell phone as the toy was clutched in her hand and up to her ear. Her child called her in missing when she realized dinner was never served!’
I kept calling to her and ringing my little I “heart” mom bell with no luck! I biked for my life! It was the first time I couldn’t reach one of my children if I had to. I was terrified.
A kind stranger who was walking her dog on the trail did see me and she called out to Pilar for her to stop. The stranger even waited to see if I was mom or a crazed woman who was just out of her mind with heat exhaustion. When she heard me say, “You almost killed me! I am calling daddy as soon as I can breathe!” she knew this was definitely my kid, but she did stick around to see if this kid was going to be safe from her own crazed mother!
No more bike rides with out daddy….or a pace maker!