Watching my kid playing with his new toys is awesome, and for his second birthday the home run present was this sound making tricycle thing. He’s amazing, riding around on this thing and gets quite annoyed when it’s time to come in.

Officially, he is no longer an infant. As a toddler, the Lil’ Baby Moo may also be growing out of that nickname we’ve first given him.

We got him a lot of other gifts, too. For his party, we got an art themed series of presents with loads of crayons and markers and paper and other stuff. On his birthday, we got a lot of Elmo presents — a bath toy, a flashlight — and some other presents like puppets and books for us to read to him.

But the coolest one was the trike.

Who can blame him? Being able to roam up and down the streets, riding up and down and feeling the breeze of freedom. Exploring your turf, expanding your frontier.

I barely remember my first tricycle. It was one of those Big Wheels disasters, with the plastic wheels and the horrible steering. You’d peddle and things would be awesome but you’d feel every tiny bump in the ground, and if there was a big bump, it could wreck your “tire” which meant that after a couple of months there would be more holes in it than you can count, and eventually one of those holes would be so big you couldn’t ride it anymore.

Then there was my first bike, this orange monster I was terrified of learning to ride because I felt like I was going to fall and break everything. My uncle took me to the park and walked me around, and OF COURSE there were training wheels. But they broke and I hated it because I would have no balance and fall over them. Picture tipping over, then flipping because the training wheel pushed you over. That was me.

So we’re at the park, and I’m getting my first real lesson. I refused to get on, until my uncle told me to “watch this.” He took my bike and gave it a nice little push, and I sat there amazed that my bike was able to go across the park without any kind of help.

“Your turn,” he said. So I pushed it and it fell like a deck of cards in a windy storm.

He meant, obviously, that I get on and try. So I did, he walked me, pushed me, and there I was, riding my bike without any kind of help whatsoever.

Oh, crap. I forgot something.

Pedelling.

So I fell.