Pure joy. Please don’t forget the feeling you had when you taught yourself to ride your bike. You were bored. I was cleaning the Community Room the day after the big Flea Market. Daddy was loading the car for a run to Goodwill with the unsold items. There were a few bikes and you got on a small one with training wheels. It was too easy for you. So you wandered over to a small Spiderman bike picked it up and sat on it. You peddled. You put your foot down. You peddled again. You put your foot down. Then you peddled and peddled before your foot went down. I pretended not to notice you working so hard to find your balance. I continued to break down the garment racks while inside I swelled with pride and tried not to get too excited about your new interest in riding. For years I had pestered you to learn to ride. I tried to make it exciting. I tried peer pressure. I even deployed a little Jewish guilt. Not even bribing you with trips to your favorite arcade worked (of course, once you learned to ride you reminded me of my promise!).

I knew there would be a day when you would learn to ride and it was going to be on your terms. You gave up your pacifier on your own. You learned to walk on your own. And now, you’ve learned to ride your bike on your own.

I cherish this video of you. The look of pride and relief and pure joy is priceless. It’s so rare to feel and even more rare to capture.

Yesterday, you rode with your Pop Pop at Sea Ranch. You’re more confident and strong and you’ve only ridden three times. It was only a few months ago when you were terrified to get on a bike. “I’m fine on my scooter,” you claimed. You were afraid you’d fall and get hurt on a bike. Pointing out it couldn’t be worse than the epic fall you had at Big Sur on the Pacific Primary Alumni Camping Trip where you went too fast on the scooter and ended up going tush over tea kettle down the hill by the campsite didn’t work. But it’s behind you now and you’ve conquered your fear.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for you – how you’ve grown into a special young man with a mind of his own and the character and wisdom to take on challenges when you’re ready. You’re not afraid of what people think about you. It’s precious you still want to snuggle, at home AND in public, and you still enjoy hanging out with us more than anything else.

I love you.

Mommy.

(And when you look back, you’ll see a long time without a post. That’s because I was totally overwhelmed. Oh, and the site was hacked by a bunch of jerks and it took forever to remove everything to get the site back up and running. When I got it working again – I think I felt a bit of that joy you felt when you rode your bike!)