Bikes Rides and Other Fun

LR's obsession with rides is no longer limited to cars. On Saturday morning we took our first family bike ride. Daddy and I bought a Burley D'Lite trailer and hooked it to my bike. I was worried about 3 things before the ride.

1. would he keep the helmet on
2. would he enjoy the ride
3. would I be able to hear him
   

When we got to our drop site, he definitely wasn't thrilled about the helmet, but once he got into the trailer, he seemed to forget about it. For the first 10 minutes of the ride I could hear him in the trailer saying "Woah! Woah!" He really enjoyed it. We biked part of the way around a pond and then decided we needed to get home for a play date. When we got back to the car he was not happy that we had stopped. He kept saying "bike again, bike again." I'm thrilled that he enjoyed it and I was even happier to be back on the bike again. Since Saturday we've been out 2 other times. Once he and I went to a park by ourselves and then last night we all went for a quick evening ride before bed. The only trouble we ran into was that he didn't want to leave the park and I ended up with a sobbing child in the trailer for the first 5 minutes on the way home.

When we got home on Saturday morning, our friends came over with their daughter V. V and LR really enjoy playing together. It's the first time I've seen him engage in interactive play instead of side-by-side play. They chased each other around and giggled when the other one did something especially funny, like fall down. They have very similar personalities, so they're neat to watch. We headed out to the zoo and spent a very warm morning checking out the flamingos, cougars, and monkeys. Luckily it's a small zoo, so in 45 minutes we saw just about everything. After the zoo we had a BBQ with them and spent the rest of the day relaxing. Apparently LR made a big impression on V. Her mom reports that she woke up the next day asking for him.

LR is starting to put together lots of words. We've jumped from 2 words to 3 or 4 and sometimes more. He's feeding me words for songs if I "forget" them. This morning he was pushing his old bouncy swing and saying "one money, two show, ready set go!" It was a funny combination of what I say when I push him on a swing and what Aunt J taught him to do when racing.

His latest favorite game with Daddy is chase, but LR has certain rules that he likes to enforce.

• Daddy has to be pushing the stroller, the push car, or the dump truck while LR pushes something else of his choice.
  
• Daddy has to have both hands on the vehicle.
  
• Daddy can only stop when LR gets tired.
  

The best thing about the game is that LR has learned the concept of turns. When Daddy gets tired, he'll announce "mommy turn!" After I run the loop with him, he'll say, "daddy turn!" (He really prefers Daddy for this particular game.) He's even started to apply it to other things. When we tag teamed a diaper change last night after the bath, LR turned to me to pick him up and said "mommy turn."

I promise to get new pictures up soon. Our camera battery ran out, so I'm a little behind.