Ride on.

Yes, that's a "big-girl bike". 


Sonja has graduated from her little wooden run bike to a bonafide pedal bike, complete with strawberry basket and handlebar streamers. We were hoping to avoid the training wheels, but she can't actually touch the ground when she rides this bike, so safety first.

The bike's name is Li'l Missy; it's painted right on the top tube. 


Sonja is in love. She rides her bike in the park, she rides it in the house (so much for the white paint on the base boards around those tight corners - yikes) and she even sits on it if she's watching something on TV. ...and then rides in tight circles in the living room while still watching. 

I watch Sonja with her bike and think that there's an awfully good chance that she will have loving memories of Li'l Missy that will last a lifetime. Everyone remembers their first real bike. 


I have memories of being very young (three- and four-years old), which means that when Sonja is an adult she will likely remember some of the things she is experiencing right now. She is more than just my child, she is a fellow traveller writing her own story. For some reason I hadn't thought of Sonja in exactly this way and once I did I felt a shift somewhere between us. I'm trying not to say outright that the realization is the reason she hugs me more lately, but it is a rather large coincidence.


Ride on, Li'l Missy.