The Story of Us: The Great Bike Debate of 2012

Clif and I are pretty much awesome parents. We have one major flaw though...over thinking.

But really, it's just like in an interview and they ask what's your biggest weakness and you say "I just care too much."

So really it's a flaw that is an asset! However, this asset is fricken annoying!

Our first mistake was to decide to buy bikes for the kids for Easter. Now this goes against all of my Easter gift giving beliefs. Easter is for anything that will fit in your basket, 'cause as my mom would have said to me if I had asked for a bike for Easter - "How is a little tiny bunny going to carry a bike." Parents sure are lucky that kids are so gullible because pay no mind to the fact that a bunny also can't carry a basket.

We always got the big things for Christmas. Easter was a basket full of candy, an outfit and maybe a small toy. But, we didn't want to get the bikes for Christmas because normally in the Washington DC area it's cold around Christmas and we didn't think they'd really be able to play with them until Spring. This was before we had the anti-winter.

Easter is in Spring, bikes are good for Spring...made perfect sense.

Except, we're travelling to North Carolina for Easter. So taking bikes would be difficult, so we'd have to ship them there and that means we have to order them and I can't pull my normal procrastination crap.

That was the first hiccup.

Second hiccup? The balance bike.

Now, until about 6 months ago when I started seeing these things pop up on Zulily.com, I had never heard of a balance bike. And even then, I thought they were so stupid. These dumb little wooden bikes that weren't really even bikes. Just seemed like another way for big bad corporations to suck some money out of me.

I was anti the balance bike. Freddie would get a tricycle and Ainsley would get a two wheel bike with training wheels.

But then they hooked Clif...and so the debate began. So the research started and the questions started and the doubts started and I have read every freaking thing that's ever been written about balance bikes. Know what? They aren't so bad. Actually, other than a couple of people telling me their kids didn't like a certain kind...I can't really find a bad review about them as a whole.

So I conceded...for Freddie. Freddie is at the perfect age for one. He should be able to go straight to a two wheel bike in a few years.

Ainsley was the question. Ainsley will be 5 this summer. Everything I was reading topped off at 5 or 6. She knows how to pedal because she has a tricycle. I didn't want to spend money on a balance bike only to have her nail it in a month and need a new bike.

Clif and I talked, and talked, and argued and talked, and argued...and TALKED about this for weeks. What should we do? What if she's too tall? What if she hates it? What if we get her a standard bike and she hates that? What if she wants Freddie's? What if, what if, what if? Clif thought we should get a balance bike, I thought we should get a regular bike.

See...over thinking, because today I finally ordered these bikes. And after literally 2 months of talking about these bikes, I came to a very simple conclusion...She's going to learn to ride the bike no matter what I do. Even if I don't buy the kid a bike, she will most likely learn to ride one. Kids ride bikes. They love riding bikes. If she wants to ride a bike, she'll find something to ride and figure it out. Right now she rides a tricycle that is way too small for her. If we get her a balance bike, she'll ride it if she wants to ride something. If we get her a regular bike, she'll figure it out if she wants to ride something.

So what did we end up with?