Nobody in history has ever cared less about their age. Ask Lowe how old he is and he’ll answer—or maybe he won’t, depending on his mood—two, five, nine, eleventeen. So when it came time to give him his first pedal bike—and his birthday was still a month off—we just said screw it, “Happy Birthday!”
We drove down to Zipolite hoping to find a beach to camp on. We didn’t, so we settled for the hotel RV park with a pool. It’s roughly one-hundred-sixty degrees down here currently, so the pool was a must. I thought about setting up a jump at the edge and just letting him hit it.
Birthdays are sort of the one tradition we have in our household. Birthday mornings mean balloons. Lots and lots of balloons.
We hid twenty pesos in two balloons. Lowe found the first one before we had even told them about it. We told him, “Good job, but if you find the next one, you have to give the money to Ouest. You each get one.” He immediately lost interest. Meanwhile, our money grubber Ouest went into full crazed-treasure-hunter mode. She searched and searched, and then of course Lowe spotted the next one as well and completely ruined Ouest’s day. She really does love nothing more than to find money. She found eleven pesos the other day. She knows the best spots—underneath park benches and near the counter of the OXXO.
When the balloon fun winds down it is time for cupcake baking.
It sucks waiting for the cupcakes to finish baking. In kid time this takes eleven hours.
This was the first time Lowe could blow the candles out on his own. Proud little boy.
Maraschino cherries—a cupcake tradition. Me never getting so much as a single one of them—my kids’ tradition.
Months ago Ouest already knew what she wanted to get Lowe for his birthday—a piggy bank. She loves her “piggy” and was sure that Lowe would love one as well. So a few weeks back we were walking down the street in Mexico City when Ali spotted the Spider-Man piggy bank. Ouest and I hung back and bought it while Lowe and Ali walked on ahead. Ouest was beside herself with excitement. Especially after we picked up a Spider-Man bag to put it in. It was sweet to see how much joy giving him this present gave her.
Then it was monster truck time.
And then, the bike. When we were in Mexico City we found this beat up yellow bike in the yard of a junk collector. Some people call them thrift shops. Anyway, one night after the kids went to bed I walked back, made the deal, and rolled the bike home. I then had to buy a couple of tools and a box of extra-large garbage bags in order to take it apart and wrap it up for transportation back to our bus. Ali and I laughed the whole way home via taxis and buses because not once did our kids question why I was lugging two big clanking garbage bags along with us.
A couple of weeks later we were walking around Puebla when I suddenly disappeared into a store to buy new tires. The rest of the afternoon I carried a bag around with two bike tires in it, and again our kids never questioned me.
Finally, at our campground in Oaxaca I was able to get to work on the bike. When we had talked to Lowe about possibly getting a bike we asked him what color he would like. “Blue! And a little bit of rojo.” Thus, the red kickstand. It took a bit of work to get everything in working order again, fortunately the owner of the campground is a welder, among many other things. The seat post was rusted in and required cutting the tube to get the post out, then welding everything shut again.
Lowe’s reaction to the bike was funny. We could tell he was a little bit nervous about taking this big step of moving up to a pedal bike. But it didn’t take him long to get excited and take off. He’s still got some growing to do before it really fits him just right, but he’s a shredder, and minutes after riding off he was already practicing tricks.
Ouest loves the bike. She is now disappointed with her bike, and wants a banana seat more than anything.
My first pedal bike was a Bruce Jenner model with a banana seat and sissy bar. I’m just sayin’.
Lowe at 48 months old, is 42 inches tall (83rd percentile) and 38.5 pounds (71st percentile).
26 Comments on “Lowe is Four—Unofficially”
Someone has to say it!! What no helmet, no knee and elbow pads, NO BUBBLE WRAP all over.:)!!! Oh yeah, you are in Mexico not the USA..I forgot!!! 😉
Ps love the prune face on Ouest while waiting for cupcakes!!!
Where we live, it is actually a crime to let a kid ride a bike without a helmet.
And another useless (or very nearly so) billion dollar industry was born.
way back in teh early 70s i had a banana seat come completely off the bike i was riding resulting in a shitton of blood and me prostate on teh street. the kids waited for me to wake up and then i was reported to have wobbled back home, desperate for a bandaid. ended up a few days in the hospital with a “good” concussion. i remember looking for the bandaid, not the crash nor the first day in the hospital.
My grandmother actually taught all of us to go check the payphones for change while she checked out at the grocery store. There was nothing better than finding a quarter.
Great work on the bike paint job.
Almost all the pay phones down here only take pre-paid cards. 🙁
we used to do the same thing (but for a dime :))
Great pictures! Happy Birthday Lowe! Happy pedaling!
When my kids were young, I’d put their presents right in the grocery cart and they wouldn’t even notice! Then they’d open them up on the occasion and be shocked because they never saw it coming. They eventually figured it out, but I loved that point in life when they were oblivious and weren’t really thinking, “Hey, my birthday is three weeks away so that must be for me.”
Super story! I love it when you take something old and make ik new again. Lowe looks like a happy biker dude!
Sweet Ride man!
My first pedal bike was a hand-me-down from my older cousins – sissy bars and banana seat.
I have been following your stories since you drove the Americas in the classic VW, before I hit on the road myself. It’s still one of my favorite blogs, glad you didn’t turn your blog into a commercial advertising one like many others do.
Great story, great pics as usual…..Love the ‘repurposed’ bike!!! Marilyn
So what you’re “just sayin'” is that Bruce Jenner is a sissy.
Bye bye, and good luck.
Wow, baking cupcakes in the RV when it is 160 degrees out. Truly you get triple bonus parenting points!
I was wondering also. All windows closed in the RV and cooking in the oven. Gluten for the heat or do you have some a/c running?
Yes the air conditioner was already running at 10 AM. It was hot and buggy at that campground, no breeze whatsoever. The cupcakes only take 10 minutes to bake with no preheating of oven. They were worth the little bit of extra heat in the bus.
Hi you guys, I would guess you don’t know of the confusion about the color of a dress recently in the news in the US((some saw one color, others saw another), but I am wondering if that is the case here – in one photo the new bike is yellow but in your description and in the subsequent pics, it is blue. Is that just trick photography? Lowe looks SO happy! What great parents!
Hey Arlie, Occasionally you have to read the post as well as look at the pics. 🙂 We found that bike in Mexico City one day when we were all walking around. Lowe sat on it and then we told him we were going to keep looking around for a new bike. We snuck back and bought this one, though.
You mean a “Caitlyn” bike, right, Pat?!!
Awesome job with the bike project – and I got a lot of memories from when I was a kid – I lived in a small island called Ovalau in Fiji when I was around Ouest’s age – and I remember what a BIG DEAL giving gifts to my brother and parents was. The excitement of giving was the best. I loved it. Thanks for reminding me of that with your post
xo
Isn’t that a nice memory? Ouest is really into the whole gift giving thing. We were walking around town looking for a thoughtful gift for her cousin’s September birthday just today. She always finds just the right thing and spends the next month or two asking us, “Do you think Lea (or Lowe, or Grammy, or whoever) is going to like the present I got for her?” And we tell her it is the perfect gift, and then she beams.
If you don’t mind sharing the info, I’m assuming your using a wordpress template for your wonderful blog. Which one is it?
It is a theme called Phoenix. But we paid a guy a bit to have him modify it to look the way we wanted it, so it isn’t exactly right off the shelf. There are a ton of themes out there though. If you like ours, then search for something like Minimalist WordPress Themes and you should find something to your liking.
balloons are HUGE (and massive quantities) for our kids birthdays too! even in their teens. 🙂 happy bday lowe! my 2nd born has always had a thing for cherries and especially maraschino. 🙂 nice memory
Among our newer multi-speed bikes we have a similar rusty antique we keep, with banana seat, upright loop at the back, and ‘easy-rider’ handlebars. The upright was handy when my older daughter got big enough to learn to ride on it, with me helping to steady via the upright. Our younger daughter learned on it too: Much later my older grandson learned balance on it by ‘coasting’ down the driveway, followed by learning to pedal. Next will be our younger nieto.
“Can I play with my truck now?” Classic line!!