Bike Ride and Tears

Bike Ride and Tears

Beautiful Scenery, Bike Ride and Tears….Seriously!

The funny thing about being a parent, sometimes your kids are impossible to please! It’s not often in Texas, in June, the temperatures are cool enough to enjoy outdoor activities unless it’s by the water, and for us, that’s a delightful 80-degree range, give or take a few degrees. Now throw in cloud cover, with a slight breeze and that’s one magnificent summer day!

Such was a rare day last Thursday. I decided to call my dad to see if he would like to go on a bike ride with my girls and me, down on the Trinity River Trails. He did and off we went, picnic included, sounds perfect does it not?

Well not so much, because depending on which of my daughters you were talking to at the time, neither of them was happy! It started off well; everyone was excited to be out in the fresh air. The scenery was lovely, taking a route we had not taken before. My youngest daughter has an imagination I am truly proud of.

When she gets tired, we make up a game and she always manages to forge ahead. She loves horses, so I have introduced her to one of my favorite childhood games, her bike becomes her steed. She loves this game naming her bike Lightning and mine respectively Silver! (She loves it and can bike for hours!).

My oldest daughter started off enjoying the bike ride. Horses were not her thing she just peddled her bike. Although she knows not to make fun of her sister because using your imagination is fabulous, no matter what the game. Trust me, since I have no idea how long this stage will last and I’m holding on to it for dear life!

After about an hour the complaints via my ten-year-old started. She was hot, she was tired, and she was bored…WHAT…SERIOUSLY…look around you, how is that possible! Could we go? Naturally, we told her not quite yet. Those cool days were few and far between in June, and we were going to take advantage and enjoy the weather a little longer. We took many breaks for her; however, she was still not happy.

Before long the tears flowed, the mad ones! “I’m ready to go home, I hate this and I’m bored,” and then finally the insults. “That’s a dumb game, it’s a bike.” Well, of course, it’s a bike, but that’s not the point is it. She was striking out because she was mad and that’s unacceptable, she had to hand over her phone and then she was really mad!

Needless to say, eventually we turned around and she was very happy. So happy in fact she quit crying, apologized, and asked for her phone back. (Which she did not get), but now my youngest daughter was not happy! She was not ready to go, enjoying the fresh air, scenery, and her steed! And then her tears came…the SAD ones!

SERIOUSLY one had just stopped crying! One cried almost all the way there and one is crying ALL the way back! “I can’t win for losing today,” I said in disbelief. My dad simply shook his head, not knowing what to say.

It is often in our house that my girls refer to Lilly from Mischief in the Mushroom Patch, and this pleases me. “Was that very Lilly-like,” they will ask. “I think Lilly would do that, like that,” they say. They do this because I use her as an example, purposely writing her character to be a well-mannered, polite little, child-like fairy. It goes with what I believe in, bringing back sweet characters.

My youngest through her tears, it was so sad, sobbed, “You are not like Lilly,” to her sister, “she would like this ride and not complain!” This is true; she would have because surely I would have written the chapter or scene that way.

Wouldn’t it be great if I could script such a scene every now and then…just every now and then for my beautiful girls? I’m sure every parent at some point has felt this way, Beautiful Scenery, Bike Rides, and Tears, Come on SERIOUSLY!