The purple racer

His pants are too short, his sleeves are too short, his shoes are too small. Every spring I find myself hoping he can just get through the last few chilly weeks and avoid the extra shopping trip before the cool weather returns in the fall, so if you see him wandering around in flood pants it's likely April or May. And he can now reach the top shelf of the refrigerator himself, too, which means that this horrible habit he has of growing is only going to continue, if not increase. 

But the one big shopping trip that can't be skipped every spring is the new bike. When I was young, my grandparents were in charge of bike replacement. It was a tradition. I remember one particular spring well: our shopping trip, the ensuing frustration of assembly, and an evening ride on my new mauve ten-speed before a grilled family dinner. These are fond memories, strengthened by the annual repetition of the ritual, and they are precious. So when my parents offered to continue that tradition with Calvin, we gladly took them up on it, and today we set out to procure his new two-wheeled transportation.

I'll tell you first that we tried shopping at our little local bike shop before we entered any big box store. But, while they had a very nice bike that would have suited Calvin well, they didn't have the one feature he wanted most of all: the color purple. So when we walked into Toys-R-Us and there, on the bottom rack right in front, was a purple bike with teal accents, it was love at first sight. He rode it once around the store and declared it perfect. Of course he'd likely have given the same verdict even if a wheel had fallen off, but it received a grandparent seal of approval as well, so home came the new purple racer, and even a chilly, rainy afternoon couldn't keep the kid from giving a spin. Over and over again. Many spins, really. And the first of many more.