Best Invention of All Time

Team Oster's family bike rides have always been fraught with strife. For whatever reason, Jiro has resisted getting his training wheels off even though he is more than ready. He's gotten over his fear of falling, but he won't lose the wheels. They really slow him down, and by extension, us. Sadly most rides end up with someone whining and generally putting a damper on our outdoorsy togetherness.

Well, those days are over!

On our most recent visit to that magical store, Target, we purchased a "Hitch a Ride" or "A Tag Along" or as I call it "The Best Invention of all Time." Warren hitched this sucker to his bike, I informed Jiro that all he had to do was hold on, and we took off on what I hope is the first of many super awesome family fun rides.


Our destination was Cafe Eclectic, where we planned to eat breakfast. (Warren wanted to ride to Republic Coffee, but I told him we better start small.) We went through the park and down McLean. It was fantastic and best of all, Jiro was having a blast! Poor Satchel suddenly found himself in the role of slowest, and peddled his heart out to keep up. (He's in desperate need of a bigger bike, which we planned to get for his birthday, but all he wanted was a stupid DSi!)

We made it to Cafe Eclectic in about 15 minutes, maybe less, so I guess Republic Coffee isn't totally out of the question. Our brunch was top notch--I had the pineapple chicken panini which was delightful and Warren was raving about his fancy espresso with cayenne pepper. (Satchel had a full breakfast of eggs, bacon, and potatoes while Jiro, who ate cereal at home, enjoyed a donut with sprinkles.) A friend had suggested that I might need to rewrite my review over at DWM because she found the service to be a bit too slow for her babe, but I have to say that our service was just fine. Not the fastest ever, but just fine. (Disclaimer: brunching with a 5 and 7 year old has a completely different time clock than brunching with a 18 month old.)

Anyways, after brunch we took a little tour of Cafe Eclectic's new bakery then set off again. We went home via the Rhodes campus and a different section of the park. We planned to tool around for awhile, but Satchel was attacked by a gumball and wiped out. He busted his knee open pretty bad and I was totally unprepared! I packed water, snacks, and a camera, but no band-aids. Warren didn't even have a bandana in his back pocket! (My stand by!) Thankfully Jiro had his head on stright. "He can use my band aid!" he said as he peeled off the extra big band-aid I gave him at Rock-n-Romp (mostly to appease him) when I was prepared. (Don't worry, the band-aid wasn't even the least bit nasty.) Sadly, it had lost too much stick to withstand furious peddling. So Satchel and I headed home while Warren and Jiro finished their tour of the park.

Despite the bumpy ending, it was still a fabulous way to start the day. Next up, biking to school!