Bribery, peer pressure, and sibling rivalry.

We are alive.

We made it home from Georgia.

Ah, so much to write!!

My beautiful, fabulous, wonderful, beautiful, perfect, beautiful niece was a delight. I was on night duty---uh, when she wasn't in the hospital.

Ok, wait. I'm writing the wrong post.

More on Tilly later.

Tonight, I already decided I'm NOT writing this post. Not enough time.

So, let me stay focused, and finish the post I AM writing.

Chris got home from work, and we were riding bikes outside. J was cruising around on his bike with worthless training wheels. Chris mentioned that it didn't look like J's high quality ghetto wal-mart junk training wheels were actually being used (read: they were both about 6 inches off the ground), so he asked J if he wanted to take them off.

He enthusiastically responded by leaping off his bike, tucking, rolling, and saying, "YESS!"

So we did just that.

And then he started crying.

But it was too late. Ya know? Parenting 101: sometimes you have to be mean and make your kids do things that they (don't) want to do. I think it builds character. The good kind. Not the bad. I'm not sure how, but I totally have this rule down.

So, we threw the bikes, Hugh, and crying J into the car, and off to the park we went.

J was less than thrilled. Actually, he was weeping and wailing. Something about being "really, really, really, I mean really too little, MOMMMMMMMM!"Exactly the sentimental moment I had imagined. My first born, venturing off into still-toddler-hood-but-almost-man-child future. Training wheels is a big deal. I don't know why I was the one being blamed for the child abuse; Chris was guilty! I was simply an innocent bystander, holding a camera... and chocolate. For bribery.

When the bribe started to loose it's flare, we moved right on to peer pressure.We told him that one of his best friends was much smaller than he is right now, when he took his training wheels off. Since that bit of information went in one ear and out the other, we resulted to bringing out sibling rivalry at it's finest---at our house we only encourage quality relationships.

We did what any smart parent would do. We put the two year old brother on the bike, and let him fly down a hill...without training wheels...or any human stabilization.

Of course it was no real surprise that Hugh thought it was a riot and magically rode to the bottom of the hill on his own.

And J couldn't have cared less.

WARNING: PLEASE EXCUSE THE HYENA HOLDING THE CAMERA. I'm not sure who invited her to come on our family outing. Oh, and PS she is not only hyena, but LOUD. Don't say I didn't warn you.