Misfits on Parade

So. Today was "Walk to School Day", an event that's been building up in Ry's mind for at least the past week. We do our own "walk to school days" every now and then, but they usually end up with us either:

A)turning around halfway there to get in the car;
B)yelling at each other about going too fast/too slow;
C)arguing about whether or not to hitch a ride with our neighbor, who leaves 15 minutes after we do and still beats us there.

These results are generally perpetuated by the fact that it's 7 am, the kids have been up since 5 (fighting the majority of the time -- isn't it amazing how dire the situation becomes when the wrong kid gets to let the dog out, or gets served breakfast first, or...turns out a light?), and I've not consumed enough coffee/Prozac to cheerily and patiently assist in the 30 minute sojourn.

My sneaking suspicion is that the real cause of the problems are that:

A) Ryan's bike is a 12" 3 yr old piece of poo with uneven training wheels;
B) Jax insists on getting out whenever we stop to push his cars along the sidewalk/street/grassy knoll;
C) Mommy is a bitch.

Seriously, the other day I heard two older boys pass by Ryan's bike on the bike rack at school and make fun of it, one commenting to the other, "Dude. Your sister's got a bigger bike than that one. And she's 3." Thank God Ryan didn't hear that. It's taken us 3 years to get her on the damn thing, and the only reason I finally made her do it was because I came across a pic of myself at age 4 on a big ole honker of a bike with no training wheels, realizing I was seriously doing my daughter a disservice by letting her wimp out.

Then there's Jax who quite literally hopped out of the stroller this morning in the middle of the crosswalk holding all 3 of his huge CARS cars, and proceeded to crawl his way across the street, tripping a couple of kids and 1 Dad. Oh, I tried to pick him up and move him along, but the only thing that did was leave him kicking, screaming, and hitting, then throwing his cars onto the ground for ME to crawl around and pick up, tripping 2 more kids and 1 mom.

When I finally managed to get the cars picked up, him in the stroller, and my glasses on straight, I realized Ryan was far ahead with some of her friends, all of whom had nice big 16" bikes, sans training wheels. Eventually she caught on, because I finally caught up to her as she was walking her bike, mumbling something about, "embarrassed..training wheels, mmmpphhh..."

So I quipped, "Well at least you're not wearing one of those geeky helmets like they are, huh?"

"I like those helmets, mom. Why won't you get one for me?"

Because as I said, Mommy is a bitch.

Now I'm headed to find a helmet for my daughter who can barely ride a 12" bike with training wheels, but whose fashion sense has taken a backseat to peer pressure, leaving her incomplete without protective head gear.

My how times have changed.