And then the boy got bored. Sassy gave me a look
that told me it was my turn to step in and amuse him.
“Hey kid,” I said, drawing him away from the group.
“Yazzz?” he asked. He had a big, unsuspecting smile on his face.
“Do you want to learn how to sectione?”
“Like how?”
“Like this.” I executed a sectione from my old swim team days when I, too, had been an eight-year-old.
It worked. Finally the kid wanted to do something with me.
I’ll say this about him: He was a fast learner. He had that sectione down in about forty minutes. He had tenacity. He didn’t give up. And he didn’t complain.
Maybe I was going to succeed at this mothering/camp counselor thing after all.
Day Three
Determined to get our mobility worked out, I decided it was time to get the boy on a bike.
I was hoping to get this task done first thing in the morning, which would give me time to work. My plan was to go directly to the bike shop, drop off Max and the boy, and then come home.
But once we got in the car, there was a whole list of other things Max and the boy needed. I groaned. What should have been a thirty-minute excursion was now going to be at least an hour.
There was the twenty-minute stop in the hardware store where we argued about fishing rods and left empty-handed. In the supermarket, we bought all kinds of things I would never eat, like marshmallows, diced fruit, and potato chips. I was beginning to get irritated, thinking about all that extra food in my small kitchen.
Finally we got to the bike store. The boy seemed reluctant to go inside, but I reminded myself that it wasn’t my problem. I wasn’t the parent.
I reached behind the seat and grabbed a bag of potato chips. For a couple of minutes I just sat there eating chips and enjoying this moment of me time.
“Hello?” Max came marching out of the bike shop.
“Yes?” I leaned out the car window.
“We have a problem.” He paused. “You need to come inside.”
The atmosphere in the shop wasn’t right. The boy was standing in the corner, shoulders slumped as if he wanted to disappear.
Poor kid. It turned out he didn’t know how to ride a bike after all. And he didn’t want to tell his father because he didn’t want to disappoint him.
It was all heartbreakingly sad, but it also meant I’d have to drive Max and the boy everywhere and that wasn’t part of the plan. I needed to fix this.
“Maybe he can learn to ride a bike,” I suggested.
I pointed out what a terrific opportunity it was, given the fact that my house was ideally located to learn this life-altering skill. There was a park across the street and a cul-de-sac behind my house. The nearby firehouse had a huge parking lot with enough space for practicing turns. I’d practiced there myself at the beginning of the summer.
“Deddy?” the boy said, star struck by the idea. “Will you teach me to ride a bike?”
“Of course I will, son,” Max replied.
Success.
Or not. Apparently nothing is simple when you’re a parent trying to do things for your kid. The bike shop didn’t sell bikes with training wheels, so we had to order it online. This ate up more time and I was beginning to get anxious about neglecting the other parts of my life. The parts that didn’t include Max and the boy. I told Max that I absolutely had to get some work done tomorrow morning and that he had to figure out something to do so I could have three hours alone.
“Fine,” Max said, rolling his eyes.