June 12, 2009

The other night the Mrs. and I went out and bought our little Chud her first bicycle, one covered with Disney princesses and sporting training wheels. The Chud was quite excited to see it also came with a water bottle. That’s to keep her cool on those long, grueling rides from one end of the driveway to the other.

I’m having a hard time accepting that my two-year-old now has her own means of independent transportation. I mean, theoretically, she could go all the way to California on this thing. A trip complicated, no doubt, by the fact that she is unable to work the pedals, but still, it could happen.

This kid loves her “bikissel”, even though it mostly serves as furniture right now. Instead of riding it around outside, she sits on it indoors and watches Max and Ruby, or just makes believe. The morning after we bought it, she got up from bed and ran to where it sat in the living room. She climbed onto the seat and said with a touch of melancholy, “I pretendin’ to drive ’cause I don’t know how to work my bikissel.”

She’d been obsessed with having one for months. I first noticed her interest last fall on a camping trip. Some little girl had a bicycle parked outside her family’s camper. Our Chud would cry out, whenever we passed it, “May I sit on that little baby bikissel?” Eventually, the Mrs. took her over to the bike and was granted permission from the owner for our daughter to sit on it. It was a big moment for such a little girl.

Since then, she has been declaring, often multiple times a day, “when I get a little bit older, I can have a bikisell!” Any occasion remotely related to two-wheeled transportation devices would serve to elicit this proclamation. If she saw a bicycle on television or someone riding one in the street, out she’d come with it. Even motorcycles would cause this response as she seems to be confused about the difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle. I fear that she soon could be the only Hell’s Angel to turn up in Sturgis on a Disney princess bike.

After months of practicing this response to even the mere mention of bicycles, the other night when she overheard the Mrs. say, “Let’s go out tonight and buy her a bicycle,” she launched into her “when I get a little bit older” routine.

Always before we had responded by saying, “Yes, that’s right sweetheart, you can.”

This time I said, “No, you won’t get a bicycle when you get a little bit older.”

I wished instantly that I hadn’t said it. Her little face fell. She stared at me, confusion and hurt marking her face.

“Yes,” she said. “My mommy said I can.”

I tried to make it better by hurrying the punch line. I picked her up.

“No,” I said, “Not when you’re a little bit older. Today. Today is the day you get a bicycle.”

She seemed to get it. At least, no permanent damage was done. There didn’t seem to be any lingering pain.

At least not for her. I’m still struggling. From the moment she was born, I knew she was on a journey away from us. Each milestone we’ve passed in the last two years has been bittersweet. I still think of that newborn who couldn’t raise her head, couldn’t turn over, couldn’t talk.  With all the joy her growth has brought, each new development has been in the direction of independence, of autonomy, of leaving. I knew this would happen. I guess I just never expected her to have wheels to help her do it so soon.