I haven’t decided if I’m going to do the whole NaBloPoMo thing this year – a post a day for the month of November. I expect it’ll be hard since I’m going to Mississippi for the second half of the month (I’ll save that story for another post), but I’m going to give it a shot for now.

Our next door neighbors are awesome. First they loaned us the spider costume for Cate to wear on Halloween, and then when I was chatting with them about getting a bike trailer, they loaned me their old one, since both of their kids now ride two-wheelers. Score!

Today I took Cate to Target and bought her a bike helmet. It’s probably not necessary in the trailer since she’s buckled in and it’s pretty stable, but we’re trying to implement the rule that bikes = helmets, so we won’t have to fight about it later. I got her a red helmet with Sesame Street characters on it (of course “Melmo!” is her favorite), because it seemed gender-neutral, and I’m all about being able to re-use things for any future kids that we might have.

I fully anticipated Cate freaking out over the helmet, because she hates anything on her head. Hats and hoods? No way. So I planned ahead: I rounded up a couple of other neighborhood kids to ride with us (who of course all had their helmets on), I put on my helmet, strapped her into the trailer, and then put on her helmet at the last possible moment before I hopped on and started pedaling.

And yeah, she did scream for the first ten seconds, until she realized that we were moving, and then she started laughing and saying, “Whee!! It’s funny!!” (She hasn’t learned the difference between fun and funny.) We rode to the neighborhood playground, which is about a 15 minute walk but took no time at all on the bike, and she had a great time playing with the two boys who rode over there with us. On the way back, she didn’t object to the helmet at all, because she seemed to get that it meant she was going for a ride again.

I’m so excited that she enjoyed it, I think it’s going to give us some opportunities for more outings this fall, and of course more exercise for me. The downside is that with all the excitement, she only took a 15-minute nap today (in the car on the way home from Target), so she conked out at 6 p.m. tonight. I’m fully expecting her to wake up around midnight ready to play. Hmm.