Warrior had recently celebrated his 8th birthday and he received a sweet "trick" bike. It was complete with front and rear pegs. Warrior had asked, begged and pleaded for a bike jump and finally his incessant pleas wore down my impish fears. It looked a lot like this bike!
Warrior involved me in all of his miniscule and grande accomplishments on his bike. "Look mom, no hands", Look mom, no feet. Look, Mom, I'm standing, Look mom, I'm standing with NO hands". As the days went by he grew bolder, more confident and more skillful. His enthusiasm was infectious. It spread through the house like a cheese fart on a hot summer day. (yeah, bask in that for a moment). (compliments of Mr. Incredible) I won't be asking him for any more analogies.
He had two older boys who were at the house teaching him some bike jumps. They started with the basics and then they got all fancy. I watched and praised the boys as they did their stunts. They flattered me and gave me a false sense of confidence.
"You can do this Mrs. Goose, You can do it! It's not hard. Here watch" The words echoed and were chanted over and over. A bit more coaxing and a few more demonstrations of exactly how I needed to perform this jump.
I went for it, with trepidation. I mounted the bike like a seasoned bull rider. I was focussed. I was determined. I approached the jump and I quickly slammed on the brakes and came to an impressive tire skidding halt.
"I'm scared, I'm a chicken", I cried.
the boys in unison, "You can do it, just go over it".
"ok", I hesitantly responded.
Up the driveway I pedal encouraging and convincing myself every inch of the way that indeed I could do it.
Deep breath in, blow it out, hands gripped on handle bars so tightly that my knuckles are white.
I build up speed, I approach the jump and this time I do not chicken out.
The second my front wheel comes off the jump it plummets and drives itself immediately to the ground. There is no soaring. Well, unless you count my body. The front bike wheel hit the ground directly in front of the jump. My body propelled itself completely over the handle bars and my chest rolled over the front wheel and hit the ground in front of the bike with such force and such power that I thought the earth shook. I basically did a head over heals complete body twist in the air. My body hit the ground with a breath jolting force. It knocked the wind out of me. BUT it definitely did not knock my pride. I put my faith in a metal object and was under the false belief that a bike named monGOOSE would not fail me.
GOOSE and Mongoose are completely different and there is NO LOVE there!
The boys came running to the end of the drive. I immediately got up, laughing barely. "Are you alright, Mrs. Goose, Are you alright Mrs. Goose"? Mom, are you ok?
Yeah, I squeaked out. I couldn't talk, I tried to walk, but I just had to bend over and get some air. I was hurting but I had 3 boys intensely looking at me.
Sadly, there was a Scott's lawn man treating my neighbors yard.
He saw it and he yells out, Mam, are you alright?.
I scowl at him and wave him off like a pestering fly.
NO more jumps for me. They didn't bother to tell me that I needed to make sure that my bike pedals were up and not down. My pedal had snagged the jump! "GEE THANKS"
I imagined it looked similar to this.
