Biker gang.

My mom found a little kids' bike at  a garage sale for Oliver. The last (and first) time he rode his bike, it was an agonizing half-hour of push starting and guidance and emergency steering wheel takeovers just to get to the mailbox. I expected a similar story for tonight's bike ride, but muscle memory must have kicked in because suddenly he was able to pedal and steer on his own.

Colin, ready to roll in his set of wheels.

Oliver, road ready.

 He biked way past the mailbox, farther than I thought we could ever hope to go on his second ever bike ride. He was even able to pedal up small hills, and he got the bike started all by himself. It was a complete night-and-day difference from his first bike ride to his second bike ride.

Colin, enjoying the neighbor's barking dog.

Oliver, shouting to us to stop taking pictures and keep going.

Just as I was starting to imagine the family bike rides we could go on, Oliver got going downhill too fast and he panicked. He forgot to put the brakes on, and when he turned around to yell for help, his front tire went off of the path and dumped him onto the asphalt. He scraped up his knee pretty horrifically, by a three-year-old's perspective.

Warning: Gore. Mature audiences only.

As soon as I saw blood, I pictured myself carrying Oliver back while somehow dragging his bike and pushing Colin in the stroller. To stop the tears, I told Oliver that we would go home and get him a band-aid, but do you know what he said to me?

"No, Mom! We can't go back! We have to keep going! I need to practice."

And just like that, he climbed back on his bike with his bleeding knee and pedaled farther down the path, sniffling up the last of his tears.

Pictured: Sheer determination to push through a terrible, possible career-ending injury.

When I told him we had to start heading back towards the house, he complained. He wanted to keep going farther down the new path to find a "secret hidden place" but it was past bedtime and I was worried he'd poop out on the way back.

Colin, oblivious to Oliver's severe injuries and uncaring about whether or not we turn back.

Oliver easily made it home without another complaint about his knee. In fact, at times he was pedaling so fast that I had to run to keep up. By the time we were pulling into our driveway, he was exclaiming that he was the best bike riding big kid he ever met, if he did say so himself.

But do you know what happened as soon as we got home? His knee injury suddenly flared up. He had to have juice to make it feel better and he had to watch a TV show and he couldn't even brush his own teeth OW MOM OW OW OW IT HURTS SO BAD I CAN'T GO TO BED IT WILL HURT TOO MUCH AND I WON'T BE ABLE TO SLEEP.

Amazing how that happened, no?

When he told me that his knee would never ever ever get better, I said that we should get rid of his bike and never go bike riding again.

"Noooooo!!! YOU CAN'T GET RID OF MY BIKE! I WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE MORE!"
"But you said your knee wasn't going to get better, never ever ever."
"Never ever ever until tomorrow. We could still ride bikes again tomorrow. Okay?"

Okay, Oliver. We'll ride bikes again tomorrow.