A Very Big Boy

I can't even believe it.  Our little Camden is riding a two-wheeler with no training wheels.  It feels so crazy to be reaching this milestone.  I don't think I've been this proud since he took his first steps.  He's not turning 4 until August, so I wasn't even anticipating this happening this summer - although he starting walking at 8.5 months, so I think I need to just get used to him reaching physical milestones on the early side.  We bought this bike for him this winter when we found it on clearance at the L.L. Bean Outlet.  We knew he probably wouldn't be riding it for a while since it's a "big boy bike" and he really had no interest in it for a long time.  All spring he said it was too hard to peddle and just didn't want to put in the effort.  He cruised around on his "Mountain Bike" all spring which is an all-terrain tricycle with huge wheels that Uncle Dave picked up at the dump last year!  About two weeks ago, Camden finally decided to give his bike a try and picked it up really quickly.

 Before long his training wheels were hardly touching the ground and we thought we'd just see what happened when we took them off.
We caught it all on video!



Daddy was excited!

 And Mama was SO proud...
And the neighbors came out to cheer for him!

And Micah said, "Yay, Bubba!" and pushed George around in his stroller...

 That same evening we brought this bike down to my parents street so they could see this awesome new skill.  (This is the same little street I learned to ride my bike on!)

 And then, our little bike that we bought on clearance broke!  Camden was sobbing and Scott tried everything to fix it, but there was no hope.  We had to bring it back to the store. 

 The next morning we dropped it back off at L.L. Bean after church.  We explained that it was broken and we were sad to find out that there wasn't another bike in the store (at an outlet store you just get lucky with what you find and there didn't happen to be another bike there at the time).  We got our money back and went all over Concord looking for another bike for Camden.  I refused to spend money on a Cars or a Spiderman bike and we found ourselves back in L.L. Bean after a frustrating journey around the city.  Unfortunately, we didn't want to order the same bike online because it was about $50 more expensive than the one we had originally purchased.  But L.L. Bean worked their magic and the store manager spoke with a customer service representative on the phone and said, "This little boy is so sad about his bike.  We need to make this right."  So, before we knew it, a brand spankin' new bike (exactly the same as the first) was being shipped to our house for free and we were only charged the price we had originally paid for the returned/used bike we had found on clearance.  And that, my friends, is why we have, and will continue, to love L.L. Bean.  We were expecting the bike to arrive on Wednesday or Thursday, but we found it on our doorstep Tuesday night.  Camden couldn't wait to get back on it the following day.  I was nervous since he had just learned for the first time on Saturday night and then hadn't ridden it since then, but we had nothing to worry about.  He hopped right back on and just took off!

So proud of himself...

Yesterday we walked (while Camden rode his bike) from our house to campus on the main road (about 1/2 mile) and then back on the rail trail.  He did amazingly well.  So much fun and great exercise for all of us (we have to run to keep up with him)!

 Riding on the Rail Trail...

 And now my little boy is grown.  :(