Death Road

Yesterday, while on our (almost) nightly bike ride, my youngest son had an interesting experience.
You see, we don't ride our bikes very often around here. We are more of a play in the back yard kind of people. But since school got out I feel it's my duty as 'mother' to make sure these kids get outside for just a few minutes a day before they rot their brains out watching cartoons on tv. Did you know cartoons are on all the time? And did you know that my oldest son can tell you what's on which channels at exactly what time? I'm thinking maybe we need to rein his remote in.

Anyways, back to the interesting experience.

We rode 2 miles to the church and for us, or should I say, for them, this was a long long long way. I mean really far. So we are headed back home and in order to get there we have this small stretch of skinny road without any bike lanes or shoulder. Basically it's a death trap for pedestrians, bike riders, and small sedans. But if you want to get home, you keep your wits about you and you pedal hard. For about 1/4 mile.

Well right before this scary road part, my baby, whose been riding in the bike trailer, falls asleep. And leans backwards. And the back part of the trailer hits the ground. Because the little pin that secures the bike trailer from collapsing has been lost for years now. It's never really been an issue before, you see, we aren't really a bike riding people. Back when we had two children who would sit in the trailer we rode bikes all the time. But that was like, what, 6 years ago. Once the little punks figured out how to ride their own bikes, we stopped going for long bike rides. Because a long bike ride now meant it would take 30 minutes to ride around the block. We haven't exactly kept the trailer in good repair since.

So anyways, my baby falls backwards, hits the asphalt, and freaks out. I stop to situate her back in. My eldest stops. My princess stops. But the kid whose been running out of gas the last 20 minutes gets his second wind. And takes off. Straight for death row.

I yell at my eldest to go after him, but he's trying to help me and my princess is stopped but she's still a ways ahead and the 5 year old is riding like the wind not paying any attention to anything around him. I get my eldest pedaling after him, with the princess right behind, and I finally am able to start in on the chase.

At this point I notice the two cars, coming from both directions, down the skinny can-really-only-fit-one-car-comfortably patch of road. And there's my punk, pedaling down the left hand side.
Oh wait, he sees the car.
Now he's veering towards the middle of the road.
There he goes straight into the middle of the road.
Both cars slow, slow, slow down to a halt.
And there's my punk, sitting on his bike, in the middle of the road, not moving.
With two very upset drivers telling him to get out of the way, and one sister yelling at him to move, and one older brother screaming at the top of his lungs to get to the side.
And the punk, he just sits there.
On his bike.
In the middle of the road.
By himself.
Finally the children reach him. They push his bike out of the way of traffic. The cars go on their merry way, throwing dirty looks in my direction. I can only imagine the words that went with the looks.

Finally I catch up to him.

Me-"Son, why on earth did you stop in the middle of the road when everyone was telling you to move to the side?"
Son- "I didn't know which side to go to."
Pause.
Son- "I don't want to go bike riding anymore."

The best part of this whole story...
No helmets were worn by anyone.

You may present me with my Mother of the Year Award now.