The Tricycle

I am not a patient person. I thought I had become one and was doing a good job fooling myself until the tricycle came along.

It all started when a friend gave us his son's old trike. This thing is awesome. It has pneumatic wheels, independent running pedals, and a hand brake, presumably so the toddler can do wicked cool peels outs.

Riding a tricycle is supposed to be one of the easiest things to teach a kid according to every Internet site ever. The How to Teach Your Child to Ride a Tricycle Book for Dummies doesn’t even exist. If you try to search the phrase above on the Web the Internet actually breaks.*

Because there is nothing easier than riding a tricycle, except maybe breathing, I was super excited for Eli to get riding. I bought him a helmet (in anticipation of the wild antics he was sure to pull while tearing around on the trike), aired up the tires, and took him to the school near our house where there was plenty of level space to ride.

My wife brought John along in the stroller, this way no one would miss Eli’s maiden voyage on the tricycle. He also functioned as the comic relief. When I put Eli’s helmet on I gave it a tap with my hand and Eli laughed at the sound. John, wanting to imitate Eli of course, started smacking himself in the head and laughing like a mental patient.

Eli climbed on the tricycle and just sat there. I showed him how to move the pedals. He just sat there. So I started to push him while steering for him but he wouldn't pedal. Since the pedals are independent from the wheel he could sit with his feet on the pedals and the wheel still turned. I started yelling, “pedal, pedal, pedal!” while pushing him and he smiled but did nothing.

My wife pointed out he didn’t know what “pedal” meant since it was his first time on a trike. I didn’t understand what this had to do with anything.

Since we were getting nowhere with the pedalling, I decided he should at least learn to steer. I showed him the yellow handle bar grips and slowly pushed him while encouraging him to steer the trike. Straight, straight, straight -- into a flag pole. It made this metallic clang that he found amusing. So he started ramming the trike into the base of the pole and laughing like the little mental patient in the stroller.

Exasperated, I looked up and realized there were security cameras on this part of the school. I couldn’t help imagining what this would have looked/sounded like on camera:

There I am, pushing a kid who clearly doesn’t know how to steer or what pedals are yelling, “pedal! pedal!” The kid has his feet sticking out either side of the trike and careens into a flag pole which he thinks is the funniest thing ever. Meanwhile his little brother is looking on playing a one man game of whack-a-mole where he is both the mole and the whacker.

Some version of these events continued for the next several tricycle tries. Finally, on the fifth or five millionth time Eli started pedalling on his own. I was very proud as I watched him ride all the way across the front of the school. Right into the flagpole.  

*Note: For any other readers like my mom I should note this is an exaggeration and the Internet does not in fact break due to searching this. Probably.