Daycare had another potential covid exposure that left them short staffed this week, so we kept Amelia home from daycare today to help them out. We went to Church first thing in the morning to practice during the short morning mass, then the group of us went to D’Lanos for a family breakfast. I remember going to D’lanos (Rikki’s at the time) almost every Sunday after Church while we were little – it was definitely good motivation to sit through Church when pancakes were waiting on the other side.

Cedric amused himself by playing with his Mushie’s nesting stars, while Amelia coloured and stacked the little coffee creams. At one point Cedric decided throwing his stars was very amusing and I had to run around collecting them from the floor. That is when I realized we had lost one! I looked on the floor, in my sister’s stroller, she checked her bag, I crawled under the table . . . nope, no star. At this point one of the waitresses asked what I was looking for, and I told her a green star box, so she went for a quick look around and came up empty handed too. I was a bit dismayed at having lost the star, but figured we would have one more good look after breakfast – I was also starting to doubt that the green star had made it to the restaurant in the first place. 

Just as we were packing up everything to leave I reached in my bag to hand my husband a diaper and out fell the star! I have no idea how the star wound up in the zipped up backpack, but it must have been opened just at the wrong moment. I loudly exclaimed “I found it!!” and the waitresses cheered.

It wasn’t quite naptime for the little ones yet, so we headed off to Superstore to do some grocery shopping. Amelia wanted to ride in the cart with Cedric and he was positively delighted; however, sometimes he shows his delight by grabbing on and not letting go. Amelia was quite annoyed when he grabbed onto her hair with a death grip. After that little incident, and Cedric being told to stop it, they sat pleasantly together while Cedric practiced gentle hands by patting Amelia’s back.

After nap time we took both trucks out the Tano fuel (best prices and top notch service make it worth the little drive). The guys at the station were just taken with Cedric, that kid can melt anyone’s heart. After that we headed off to the Duchess Park bike area for Amelia to practice on her balance bike.

She hasn’t been able to use the bike on anything except the house floors, or smooth pavement because the wheel and handlebars kept misaligning (someone too big sat on it tsk). I got fed up with that and took it into Cycle Logic. I was feeling a bit silly walking in with my toddler bike, but the staff didn’t bat an eye and tuned it up for the cost of a smile. Definitely check them out for all your mountain biking gear! I almost bought a new pair of biking shorts, but refrained. I’ll see if my old pair still fits when we hit the trails next week (weather permitting). 

I was beyond impressed with Amelia’s skills. She started off the visit barely able to walk/run with her bike on the dirt, to going down the whoop-de-dos saying “no mom! Let go, I can do it myself”, to trying to scale one of the “big” ramps. I caught up to her as she was trying to push her bike up it. I explained we needed a bit more practice for these, but that I could help her – she decided that was a good idea, so we some assisted descents. She LOVED that. Give it another few practices and she will be zooming around that pump track in no time.

I love the innocence of children, they do not have any preconceived notion on how things are going to turn out so jump in heart first and just enjoy things without fear. I hope she continues to enjoy biking and will eventually want to ride with me and my sister.