Ride Safely, Little One

There will be a trike-a-thon to raise money at Zahra's preschool on May 14. In order to participate, the student must bring in their own tricycle from home as well as wear their helmet. Since Zahra didn't own a helmet as of yesterday, Grandma Bessie went to buy her a brand-new Barbie one with butterflies on it and she brought it to Zahra this morning. (Thank you, Bessie!) Zahra was so excited to have some new bike equipment.

In the pictures she's riding the "big girl bike" with training wheels, but she'll be riding her little trike for the fundraiser. I thought I'd take a few pictures to share with you all so you could see what she looks like riding her bike down the street. Complacent Max sat quietly on the doorstep in his car seat as Zahra rode her bike back and forth. It was a very nice spring day out and perfect weather for Zahra to ride around in.

After riding on the street, we moved into a safer environment by putting the bike in our little patio area out back (which Zahra refers to as the "backyardigan" because of the Nickelodeon show of the same name). Since there wasn't much room for Zahra to ride around in, as it's really only a couple square feet, she decided to put on a "show" instead. So she brought out a lot of little chairs and things for her audience to sit on. She made up an audience of stuffed animals and other little toys. At one point, we put Max out in the audience (in his Bumbo chair), so he could watch, too. She performed mock races where she would "race" the few feet on the "big girl bike" and her competitor would "ride" the tricycle. A funny thing happened: Zahra won every time. She got a lot of "Congratulations!" from me and a few smiles from Max. (In her ever-cute developing vocabulary, the word of praise has currently been truncated to "gratulations.")

It doesn't seem like too long ago that she couldn't even reach the pedals on this bike. How true it is that they grow up so fast! She looks so happy here; I love to see her like this.