Norah's First Biking Adventure

Norah's first biking adventure didn't turn out to be as much fun as we pictured it being. She loves riding in the backpack out in the woods and she loves the jogging stroller so naturally we just assumed she would love the like bike trailer that we were really excited about.

Oh no friends this was not the case!

We of course set out big for our first ride. Maybe some would have practiced before hitting the trail and riding far enough away from the car that there was no way you could walk back or drive the car to a friendly pick up spot. Oh no not us! We decide to go for it and assume it will be smooth.

So after about 10 minutes of playing with the helmet we finally get it on her head which she was not pleased about. And being the over-protective mom that I am I insist that she wear the helmet because the instructions on the bike trailer say how important this is. And because you never know what "could" happen....the white pine trail can be pretty dangerous you know...it's long and wide and pretty flat and we were going extrememly slow but you just never know, right?

So Norah does pretty good for a bit. Enough for us to get about 4 miles into the ride and then she loses it. Totally loses it. So at this point we've got 4 miles back to the car. There was no calming her--she was frustrated and only getting more and more so. So finally I agree that we can take her helmet off because it keeps falling over her eyes which is only making things worse. So we take it off and I'm riding along side my daughter feeling like a horrible parent and thinking that other people are wondering "why on earth don't those people have a helmet on their baby?"

But then we pass by another little bike trailer with 2 girls and neither have helmets! I must admit I felt some comfort in knowing we weren't the only bad parents out there! :)

In the end we made it back to the car after lots of tears (mostly Norah but I had a few myself!) and poor Randy just feeling awful about the whole experience and bummed about the bike trailer he was so excited to buy. And our poor friend Sunday who had joined us that evening for a "nice quiet leisurely" ride who had to be wondering what in the world just happened?

Not to mention the crazy road biker lady who was yelling at me and wanted to beat me up because I was riding a little to much in her space while I was trying to sing and soothe my screaming daughter. Adventure I tell you!

And wouldn't you know as soon I pulled her out of that little bike trailer those tears disappeared and life was good again. The arms of mama somehow comfort all the troubles of the world!

Sunshine Makes Us Happy.....

So the weather has finally shifted and it seems that more and more the days become warmer and warmer....even when it's raining. We love this time of year. Everything comes to life and we can get outside and do so many of the things we love. We are getting ready to plant our vegetable and herb garden, and hopefully I'll have time to plant some flowers too. We will probably pull the hammock out this week (thanks to the Freuds we've been "borrowing" it for the last few summers...one of these years we will have to buy our own!) We just bought a bike trailer to pull Norah in so we are real excited about that, especially Randy who just loves his bike...you would have thought he was a little kid and it was Christmas morning when that thing was delivered to our house!! We have started looking at the calendar to see when we can get out and go camping and wondering "hmmm how will this look with a baby this year?" We are ready to give it a go because it's one of our favorite things to do in the summer and we figure we might as well break Norah in early.

Norah has been loving being outside too. She loves the jogging stroller, the Kelty backpack, sitting out on the deck, and playing in the grass. Her newest thing is that she loves to STAND on the deck. This is crazy to me....is she old enough to do this I wonder? But she does it. She is getting strong enough she practically pulls herself up and just holds on to the deck spindles and stands there and babbles away and thinks it's just the coolest thing ever. She is so badly wanting to move but not real interested in crawling yet, although she did just start crawling backwards a little bit on Sunday. I think before I know it she is going to be moving all around and my world will never be the same! Already the other day the exersaucer was too close to the wall and she got real quite and I turned around to realize she was sticking her fingers in the outlet! I'm not sure I'm ready for the 'moving' phase. :)

Standing tall and exploring what is beyond the confines of the deck!

This is where she's been eating most of her meals lately...picnics on the deck!

I picked up this little tent last summer at a garge sale and it's so fabulous to put her in when we are out on the deck so she doesn't get a sunburn. She seems to enjoy it except for the day when the wind blew so hard it blew the tent around a little bit and knocked her over....that day not a fan of the tent. The funny thing is we were packing up her tent the other day and I noticed the tag on it said "FOR INDOOR USE ONLY!". Now why would I need a tent indoors?

This is a frequent expression of our little girl...she has a lot to say these days! My little social butterfly.