Father's Day Gift

I realize the dust hasn't even settled on my last post, but I couldn't wait to post these pics because they're just too friggin' cute.

For Father's Day Kostyn (with Mommy's help) made Daddy a frame from him and Evan. It was his first foray into the colorful, messy world of finger painting (with real paint ... we'd only ever used pudding laced with food coloring before) and he had tons of fun.



Then yesterday while Chris was out I took some pics of the boys together. I only took five photos and four of them came out great! I couldn't believe both boys were so cooperative; the whole thing took less than 2 minutes. Here are the best three....







And the finished product, which Daddy (of course) loved...

To the men in my life

I penned this poem several years ago, and the lovely thing is I don't really remember who I wrote it for first -- my father or my husband. I know both were given copies of their own (with slight pronoun changes) ages ago.

It's not a great poem but it means even more to me today, seeing Chris as a father and my dad as a grandfather to my boys. Because now I am faced with the awesome privilege and challenge of making sure Kostyn and Evan turn out like their daddy and their Pop-pops. Reminding and rededicating myself to that goal will be my gift to all four of them every Father's Day.

Women always end up
marrying their fathers.
That's what they said.
And I'd look at his goofy grin and say,
Not a chance.

And then I grew up and started to see
the simplicity of his philosophies
Family. Love. Commitment.
And I'd look at his kind eyes and say,
Well, maybe parts of him.

And then I met you.
And I see your sweet, sweet disposition.
The strength that comes with
standing again after life knocks you down.
And the quiet passion you have for what's important
Family. Love. Commitment.
And I look into your heart and say,
Thank God I'm as smart as Mom.

Naomi Williams is living on hugs and hope. Join her.

Jack and Chrissy

When you see my cousin Chrissy and her boyfriend, Jack, you think they’ve been ripped right out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. They’re both tall, athletic, lean, tanned and, let’s get right down to it, beautiful. Then you spend five minutes talking to them and you realize their insides match their outsides: Beautiful. It’s lovely how these two found each other, started dating in college and are now both making a go of it as teachers and high school coaches in New York.

Jack’s sister, Naomi, is equally beautiful. She’s 29 and married with a 2-and-a half-year-old boy named Jake. She owns a successful photography studio in Jacksonville, Fla., and looks like she should be in front of the lens, not just behind it. A charmed life, no?

No.

Because a few months ago she bent over to put a plug in an electrical socket and heard a “pop,” which led to an MRI to confirm a compound fracture in her spine, which led to surgery being scheduled, which led to pre-op testing that found cancer. A lot of cancer. Stage 4 metastatic melanoma that had already spread to her lungs, bones and pelvis. (Forgive the horrendous TV reference I’m about to throw out here, but if anyone still watches “Grey’s Anatomy,” Naomi’s got what Izzy Stevens was diagnosed with this past season.)

Naomi and Jack

Before I had kids, I was not afraid of dying. Part faith and part denial, perhaps, but I just never worried about it. But now. Now I can’t bear the thought. I have two tiny, innocent little boys whose lives are dependent upon mine. OK, I suppose that’s not literally true. I know if, God forbid, something happened to me, loved ones would step in and surround those two boys with such tender loving care that they might never feel a minute of loneliness. But it wouldn’t be my tender loving care. They wouldn’t know my love.

They wouldn’t know me.

That’s what gets me every time a plight like Naomi’s crosses my radar screen -- that my boys are so young right now (... just like Jake ...), if I were whisked away to heaven tomorrow would they remember me? Would Kostyn’s memory of his mama eventually fade to nothing? Would he somehow retain the words to the silly songs only he and I sing? Would he ever see a mole on someone’s face and think about how he used to gingerly touch the tiny one on his mother’s face, just below her lower lip, and say “Mama mole”? Would Evan have any recollection of my voice, my scent? Would either of them hear one of the songs we dance to a lot and be able to conjure up my image in their minds? Would they feel a pang of something missing in their hearts?

Or not?

I know it’s an incredibly selfish place to wallow, but there it is. The thought that crushes my soul. And when I think about Jake and Naomi, my heart aches for them in a way I couldn’t have truly felt two years ago.

Naomi and Jake

Chrissy told me tonight that after a successful benefit last weekend for Naomi, which she was feeling well enough to attend, things suddenly have gone downhill. She’s in the hospital battling even larger, painful lesions on her pelvis and spine. The cancer is overtaking her lungs and is showing up on her liver now, too.

All I can do is cry and pray for this woman I’ve never met, and for her child I’ve taken in as my own in my heart.

I’m relaying all of this not to depress you, but to ask for a call to action.

If you are a person of faith, this family could use the prayers.

If you are a person of means, they could use the donation.

And at the risk of sounding trite, if you are a parent, your children could use more hugs. Like, now. Even if they’re tucked up in bed. Even if they just threw a screaming fit and are in Time Out. Even if you just hugged them 5 minutes ago. Hug them for Naomi, hug them for Jake, and hug them for every other family whose happily ever after gets suddenly called into question.

For me, this tragedy is a reminder to give my kids every drop of tender loving care I’ve got, every day, knowing that God will supply more for me tomorrow. I don’t want to squander any of it, or save it up for later. I want to give them so much today that they have no option but to savor such a priceless bounty — their own mother’s love — in their little hearts, forever. No matter what tomorrow brings.

To read more about Naomi and her plight (she was also featured on ABC News) check out the Pictures of Hope Web site.

In defense of empty baby books

I have a secret for all you kids - young and old - whose baby books are basically empty. It’s for the middle children whose parents can never seem to remember when you started walking or what your first word was. It’s for the babies of the family who don’t have any photos of themselves before age 7. Basically, this is for anyone who wasn’t born first.

C’m’ere....lean in.....shhhhhhhh. OK, here it is:

Your parents might not have documented your infancy the way they did your older sibling’s. But on some level, whether they’d admit it or not, they enjoyed it more.

OK, so maybe that’s a sweeping generalization, but it’s true for me. Evan is 3 months old, which I find hard to believe and my laptop’s hard drive find’s darn near impossible to believe. By this time in Kostyn’s infancy the ol’ Mac’s memory was bogged down to near-capacity with photos and video clips of him doing nothing more than staring wide-eyed at the flash or wiggling his limbs involuntarily. I actually had folders of photos categorized by weeks. “Kostyn’s 3rd week.” “Kostyn - Week 5.” How long I thought I’d keep up that charade, I’ve no idea. We also wrote long flowery letters to him every week in his baby journal, and took monthly notes for his baby book about his tiniest developments.

Evan’s first three months have been, to put it delicately, not documented quite so diligently. I think I’ve written in his baby journal three times, and two of those entries were penned when I was still pregnant. I have one specially named photo folder for him -- “Evan’s first week.” Nothing after that is labeled. I’ve cracked his baby book open exactly twice — once so the nurses could put his footprint on the appropriate page, and once in an attempt to start filling in such important details as “My Mommy’s name is...” Admittedly, I didn’t even get very far with that endeavor.

When I think about all that I feel a little guilty, naturally. But then I realize that I am experiencing Evan’s first months in an entirely different way than I experienced Kostyn’s. And not just a busier, more distracted way, what with having two butts to wipe and two mouths to feed and a toddler running around, chattering nonstop. Nope, it’s a (shhhhh!) better way. And I ain’t puttin’ that in no baby book.

Things are different this time because I am different. There are no first-time mom jitters hampering me from relaxing while I’m holding the baby. There’s much less second-guessing about my parenting style, which allows me to just do what feels right and to hell with those on the opposite side of the spectrum. And there’s even a neat little reserve of infant-related information in my head, which translates to way fewer trips to Google to try to figure out whether what’s happening at any particularly puzzling moment is normal or cause for concern.

From Day 1 with Evan, my arms knew how to hold a baby. My body knew how to soothe a fussy newborn. I hadn’t just read about the “5 S’s,” I’d lived it. I was better at swaddling him and burping him and even clipping his tiny fingernails.

I’m also more relaxed about the bad times. When he’s having a total meltdown, I know that sometimes babies just melt down. I know that it is not my personal failing as a mother if I can’t quiet him in the first 3 minutes. And just as babies sense a mother’s tension, they also sense a mother’s calm, which I’m sure is a big part of why Evan cries so much less than Kostyn did.

I think because of all this I live “in the moment” more with Evan than I did with Kostyn. Sure, we savored Kostyn’s every coo, and we took a gazillion photos and noted every milestone and talked endlessly about how Kostyn was just perfect right then and we couldn’t imagine what the next day or year might hold. But this time around my perspective on time is different. I see the example every day, running around my dining room table, of how quickly that next day and next year come. Those little onesies give way to big boy T-shirts in the blink of an eye.

I know I’ll have some explaining to do one day, when Evan stumbles upon Kostyn’s baby journal and realizes we wrote so much more to his big brother than we did to him. In my defense, I guess I’ll say that instead of being jealous of Kostyn, Evan should be thankful for him. Because Kostyn “broke me in” as a mom. He worked hard to get my arms just right for rocking and my lap just right for reading. He helped me memorize all the lullabies that I would eventually sing to Evan. He taught me a lot, as a good big brother should, about how to care for his little brother.

I’ll tell Evan that in these early months I didn’t have much free time, and I didn’t want to squander it scrapbooking and journal-writing. Instead I spent every free second I could basking in his tiny smile, inhaling that intoxicating baby scent coming from the top of his head, and generally enjoying him as he enjoyed me. He’s a happy guy, and I’m a happy mom. Baby books be damned.

E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G spells STOP!

Kostyn knows four words that he recognizes and can spell. “Kostyn,” “Evan,” “love” and “stop.” This is great fun, particularly in the car where we have to linger at every stop sign so he can wave his little finger toward each letter and announce each with excitement, as if he didn’t just read the same damn thing 2 blocks back. “S-T-O-P. This spells ‘Stop’!” he says with great pride.

And I admit, I’m proud of him. Smart little bugger, he is. But I think what I love most is that he loves letters and words and spelling so much it doesn't matter to him that 99.8 percent of the time he doesn’t actually know how to read what he spells. He just defaults to “stop”:

As he hands me the box of crackers I asked him to get out of the pantry: “R-I-T-Z. This spells ‘stop.’”

When we go for a walk around the block and he has to s-t-o-p at every sign in someone’s yard. “G-A-U-G-H-E-N R-E-A-L-T-Y. This spells ‘stop.’”

And my personal favorite, which occurred yesterday at the grocery store when he pointed wildly at several of the illuminated numbers at the checkout counters and "spelled" them: “8-7-6-5-4-3. This spells ‘stop.’”

It's gonna blow the kid’s mind when he starts to understand this whole “phonics” thing we’ve been doing...

The doctor will *cough, hack* see you now...

I’m instituting a new rule in my life: I will no longer go to doctors’ offices where the people wearing the uniforms don’t look at least moderately healthy. They don’t all have to be triathletes; I know “healthy” comes in all shapes and sizes. But I shouldn’t have to worry about whether I might need to perform CPR on my own doctor as I watch him huff and puff his way down the hall.

I tried a new family practice a couple weeks ago because I need to find someone local who can monitor my thyroid. (As an aside, why does it seem like the ailment I’ve had for almost 3 years is suddenly trendy? Every time I turn around I meet another woman who’s having her thyroid checked.) I picked a doctor after perusing several MD bios online and finding one who seemed competent, and close.

His personality was mildly annoying (dude, when I say I just moved here and really like the area, you don’t need to spend 10 minutes telling me how much better Philly is....), but what really got me was his midsection. It was large. Like, shirt buttons-stretching-fabric large. And I find that sort of hypocritical. I mean, I know doctors are busy and they work long hours and there’s a lot of stress and strain involved in the business of having other people’s lives in your hands. It’s not like I expect my doctors to look like Michael Phelps or Brad Pitt (Wait...). But if they’re going to stand there and ask me how much caffeine I consume and whether I exercise regularly, they better look like they could answer those questions in a positive way themselves.

And the nurse, well, she was even worse. She was skinny, but that sort of hard livin’ skinny, with horribly stained or missing teeth. Missing.

Today when I had to return for follow-up bloodwork I saw the culprit of her horrendous mouth and leathery appearance. As we were pulling out of the parking lot she was exiting the office on her lunch break, already puffing away on a cigarette.

Watching a health care professional smoke a cigarette is insulting. It made me feel like an idiot for giving these people my time, my medical history, my blood and, most of all, for putting my health in their hands. Because becoming a nurse or doctor takes thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of schoolin’, and if after all that you’re still too stupid to apply what you’ve learned on yourself, well then all the summa cum laudes in the world couldn’t make me trust you with my own physical well-being.

Maybe those doctor rating Web sites should include more important information than medical association affiliations. “Dr. John Doe graduated at the bottom of his class from Barely Accredited University, and completed his residency at East Nowhere Medical Center. But at age 55 he still runs a 7-minute mile, is a lifelong non-smoker, practices yoga four times a week and sponsors the local farmer’s market to encourage the consumption of organic, locally grown produce.”

Sign me up, Dr. Doe.

I’m just sayin’.

I LOVE this kid

Kostyn LOVES things. This happened suddenly. He’d never professed his love for anything other than me and Daddy. But a couple days ago he found a sheet of Mickey Mouse stickers in “his” desk drawer and came running over to me with them in hand.

“OOOOOH” he said.
“Would you like a sticker?” I asked.
“Ohhhh, yes! I LOVE stickers!” he gushed.
“You do? You love stickers?”
“Ohh, yes!”
“Which one do you want?”
“Dis one. Mouse.”
“Mickey Mouse?”
“Oh, yes! I LOVE Mouse.”
He promptly stuck the sticker on his leg and wanted more.
“You want another one? Which one?”
“Ohhhh, Minnie. I LOVE Minnie.”
This went on and on — “I LOVE Goofy....I LOVE Daisy...” until six stickers were plastered on his shins.

I thought it was cool that he was finally able to verbalize his true affinity for things, and wondered when he’d start to tell us his “favorite” color or his “favorite” animal.

About an hour later we were on our way to the car, and as I juggled Evan's car seat and our bags of stuff to open the car door, Kostyn started his usual commentary:
“Car..(mumble mumble indecipherable toddlerspeak)....the door.”
I did my usual translation: "Yep, Mama’s opening the door to our car."
"I LOVE doors."
"You love doors? Me too."
"Open. I LOVE open."
"Yep, Mama opened the door for Kostyn," as I lifted him up to his seat. "Then we’ll close the door."
"I LOVE closed."
"You love closed?"
"Ohhh YES!"

Yeah. Perhaps we’ve got a ways to go before we get to the concept of “favorites”...

On Chemistry and Forced Friendships: Navigating the social awkwardness of the playdate

I thought I left the dating world a long, long (long) time ago. But now I find myself in a whole other dating dimension, one in which there is no alcohol and the only things I’m kissing are skinned knees and other boo-boos. In short, it’s worse than dating. It’s playdating.

The playdate is a phenomenon that must have been invented sometime after my own childhood, because I don’t remember my mother ever scheduling visits with very small people she told me were my friends. Then again, from what she says I was so shy I didn’t want to play with ANYONE when I was a tiny tot, let alone some random 2-year-old whose mommy met mine at the grocery store. So maybe I was just smart enough to hole myself up in my bedroom until the “playdate” stage of life had passed.

These days stay-at-home moms are all into playdates. We’re nuts with the playdates. And I’ve heard so many moms of toddlers talking about their kids’ playdates, and what they’re doing on their playdates, and the value of socialization at this young age, that I admit I’ve gotten sucked into the madness. Now I’m always half-searching for a playdate for Kostyn, scanning the other moms and tots at the library’s Storytime ... sizing up the toddlers at my monthly Moms Group meeting to judge who might make a good mate for my little guy. It’s not sane behavior, I know this.

When I started looking for playdates for Kostyn, I told myself I was just hunting for him. It didn’t matter what the mom was like or whether she and I clicked because the point was for him to socialize, not me. But when I found him a playdate, a funny thing happened -- I started to want more than a date for my son. I started to wish I could have a date, too.

Every week I sit with this woman for an hour and a half, smiling and nodding and answering my 2-year-old’s questions about cars and trucks and “a-planes in the sky” ... I pretend it’s all about him, and spend the time blathering on about my kids and listening to her blather on about hers ... but all the while I pine for good adult conversation, the kind that might not even include talks of birthday parties and Brownies and potty training. (Oh my!)

I’m tempted to ask this mother sitting across from me what she truly thinks about Obama’s healthcare reform, or whether she’s worried about how North Korea convicting those two journalists might affect its already tense relationship with the U.S. Or whether, first and foremost, she’s watching “The Bachelorette.”

But I don’t. Instead I ask about her son’s preschool or listen to her talk about her daughter’s new bike. Because I know in the grand scheme of things, we don’t really click. I mean, she’s perfectly nice and sincere and easy to talk to, and her kid’s cute as a button, but ... there are just no sparks. There’s no easy laughter between us, no finishing each other’s sentences, no witty sarcastic jabs exchanged. And trust me, it’s not something that could grow with time. She’s just not my type. She doesn’t even like football. She doesn’t even like sports! (Check, please!)

It’s not her, it’s me.

And I’m in a quandary, knowing this. Knowing that I am destined to “date” this woman indefinitely, because our sons are playdating. Some weeks this mom is literally the only adult besides my husband with whom I have face-to-face interaction (not counting checkout clerks and librarians). The worst part is I’m beginning to think she sorta digs me, and looks forward to our playdates in a way I simply don’t. (Not that way, jeez!)

So at the risk of overscheduling my 2-year-old, I’ve started to consider setting up another playdate. Sort of an on-the-side, “keep this on the down-low” type of thing. (wink, nudge) Kostyn doesn’t meet with the first little boy every week anyway. And two weeks ago at the local library’s Storytime session, there was this mom who I think was totally hitting on me, playdate-style. She remembered me from the last Storytime session, which I suppose wasn’t hard to do because back then I was as big as a hot-air balloon, ready to pop at any moment (and did ... I went into labor the morning of the last Storytime and missed the program’s finale).

She struck up a conversation with me before Storytime started, and sort of lingered afterwards, glancing over at Kostyn and I as we read more books while the rest of the moms and kids dispersed. I think she finally left with her little girl in tow when it became apparent that the librarian was going to talk my ear off for awhile, and it wasn’t until later on that I realized she might have been wanting to chat with me again or set up a playdate for ... ahem ... our kids. (I always was clueless when a potential date was trying to get my attention.)

In the 3-minute exchange we did have, I could tell we might click. We talked about our kids in a way that we were really talking about ourselves. She was self-deprecating, casual, slightly frazzled. She was exactly my type.

Admittedly, I was a little excited for last week’s Storytime. (Um, it should be said that I have no recollection of how old her little girl was, or even if she might make a good playmate for Kostyn.) I figured I’d position us close to my Potential Playdate and her daughter in the semi-circle, and wait for her to make the first move. (I was never good at making the first move.) But then Kostyn and Evan and I were late and had to sit way on the other side of the room. Plus, Kostyn’s Original Playdate was there. They’d come to MY library even though they were signed up for a different branch’s Storytime. (The nerve!)

So after the session, Original Playdate ambled over with her brood to chat me up and there was just no good time to catch Potential Playdate’s attention. Even though we weren’t technically on a date with Original Playdate, I just didn’t have the heart to go ask someone else out right in front of her, ya know? Instead I had to watch helplessly as Potential and her daughter drifted off, talking to another mom who, can I just say totally didn't look like the type who'd ever even seen one episode of "The Bachelorette"?

So this Friday is the last Storytime session, and I’m already planning my move. We’ll definitely get there early; with toddlers toddling all over tarnation in there, scoring the right spot in the semicircle is key. Hopefully Potential Playdate is there too, and maybe, just maybe, I can work up the nerve to ask her out.

I mean, to ask her daughter to come play with my son.

I wonder what I should wear on Friday.......?

Let's Review:

1. Bought a sailboat. It was stolen.

2. Bought a pop-up. It was a scam.

3. Bought another pop-up. Was such a good deal that it seemed too good to be true.

4. It was.

After spending weeks fixing it up, purchasing new stuff and accepting tons of hand-me-down camping gear from my folks, packing clothes and washing new dishes and buying all sorts of food for our first family camping weekend, the damn thing busted in three places last night while we were getting it ready to go. Now we've got linens, food, dishes and dreams stuck inside (I'm particularly pissed that I packed the Oreos in there before we lowered the top...), and nobody we called today seems to be able to fix it.

So now we're left wondering what to do. Do we keep searching for someone who can repair a camper that's so old nobody says it's worth saving? Do we sink more money into a newer used pop-up and hope that the third time's the charm?

Or do we throw our hands in the air (shake fists toward the heavens?), scream "OK! OK! We get it! We're not supposed to EVER do anything fun as a family!" to nobody in particular, join Netflix and become couch potatoes?

Kostyn Turns 2. Part 2.

When I was a kid I thought my birthday was a day just for me. Every February 13th of my childhood was spent knowing that on that day the world changed forever because I entered it. I knew this was a very big deal because I got to choose what the whole family ate for dinner that day, and have whatever kind of cake I wanted, too. (Always lasagna, and always chocolate cake.)

If I ever saw my mother’s eyes glistening as she sang “Happy Birthday” to me, I probably thought she was just so darn happy seeing me so happy. (Kids are delightfully egocentric, aren’t they?)

Now, of course, I’m a mother myself, so I know what a child’s birthday really means. I know that the underlying purpose of the cake and candles and presents and all the birthday hoopla is to allow the parents to celebrate, too. Because really, it’s their day too. It’s the day their world changed forever, and they actually played a much more active role in that occurrence than the one whose name is on the cake.

I’m not trying to metaphorically deflate Kostyn’s birthday balloons. Yesterday was definitely his big day, celebrated with his very first Happy Meal for lunch (he only ate the fries), hot dogs and baked beans for dinner (two of his favorite foods), and a brand-new sandbox for him to play in. He’s only 2, so he really didn’t understand the streamers and balloons in the dining room, or why his cousins were singing to him over the phone, or even what it means when someone asks “How old are you now?” and he says, “OK, two!”

But Chris and I understand the question, and the answer. We feel the blur of all that has changed in our lives in the last 730 days. We know what life was like before Kostyn, and how it’s been immeasurably better after his arrival. We see the baby becoming a boy before our eyes, at once helpless to stop such a tragedy and thankful to witness such a miracle.

He is pure light, that little guy, and I love him with all my heart. Yesterday I celebrated his existence today and his arrival on June 2, 2007, with humility, thankfulness, overwhelming joy and pride. Because two years ago I had a fairly large part in giving the world this:



You’re welcome. :)

Kostyn Turns 2. Part 1.

I'm too tired for the obligatory sappy commentary tonight. Check back tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some pics from our trip to Lake Tobias Wildlife Park on Sunday with family. For Kostyn, who is aaaaall about his little plastic animals these days and is rarely seen without one or two of them in his tight little fists (usually the giraffe and the pig, which tragically we actually didn't see there), seeing REAL LIVE zebras and tigers and monkeys up close was about the best birthday present ever. It was a perfect day, and we had a blast.



It was a lot of walking for a little guy. Thank God for Daddy's strong shoulders.

My sister and her family on the safari bus ride.

We saw lots of mamas with their babies. On both sides of the fences.

Kostyn's drum cake, made with love by my talented older sister (Mama MacGyver).



Presents!

I'm including this one because it's the only one we got of Evan -- or Mom! -- all day.

Boys love trucks.

Kostyn and his cousin, playing with the new trucks.

The kid had no fear at the petting zoo. Here he is sizing up a Shetland pony. Incidentally, this is the same look in his eye he gets right before tormenting the dog.

For the most part the goat kids were completely overfed and bored of our petting zoo crackers. Kostyn managed to find a few who took his treats. A few others just tried to eat his shirt. Luckily, he was a good sport.

Honk if you Love Jesus

One of Kostyn’s birthday presents was a Playmobil RV, complete with bikes and a picnic table and all sorts of outdoor gear that we immediately took away because the pieces are too tiny for him to have yet. We thought the RV itself and the family inside would be a fun way to introduce him to camping in a little miniature world, just as we’re set to head off on our first family camping excursion this weekend.

And he loves it. Played with it for about an hour nonstop this morning, and carried around the people and bikes with him all day.

The thing has the quintessential storybook family: A buff guy, a skinny, young-looking woman, a little boy and an even littler girl. Kostyn immediately labeled them “Dada,” “Mama,” “Non” (what he says for “Kostyn”) and “Baby.” “Baby,” of course, is the little girl. Even though she is clearly not a baby, she is the fourth, the extra, so it stands to reason in Kostyn’s little mind that she’s the “Evan” of the family.

So today I asked him what the baby’s name was, assuming he’d say “Ewan.”

Imagine my surprise when, instead, he said, “Jesus.”

Now I’m feeling all weird that “Jesus” is currently crammed in the bike compartment with her little purple bike. Maybe I should quietly take her out and, I don't know, put her in the driver’s seat?