I Now Believe

My husband is a gifted story teller, I will give him that.  He's been likened a bit to Jim Carrey in his ability to do voices, facial expressions and wild body movements that usually wrap up his audience in laughter, unless we've heard the story before (which for me is often 1000 times).  But I will hand it to him, he's got a gift. 

The best stories are the ones from his childhood.  The day their neighbor climbed a 30 foot palm tree and got bit by an angry rat when he stumbled upon its nest.  Or the time he and his friend Donnie got back at a thug in high school by throwing a huge Big Gulp across the quad and instead of it landing on the thug, it hit the thug's girlfriend who was Miss Thug, serving as double payback.  I listen and laugh and for the most part believe his wild tales because knowing him so well, they are actually quite believable. 

But I'm always a little suspect when he tells me things from when he was a little teeny tiny kid, like under 5.  He claims to remember being in his crib at the age of 2, and recalls what it looked like and felt like to be in a crib with vivid detail.  Hmm hmmm, sure okay.  It's common knowledge that the Howe family can exaggerate just a bit (it's true!).  The ring dinger of all of his childhood stories though is how he tells people over and over that one day at the age of 4, his parents took off his training wheels and he started riding his bike, with no help or prior practice.  He just took off.  Remembering my own painful experience of learning to ride a bike, and having just gone through the same experience with Taylor almost 2 years ago, practicing with her for weeks before she could ride on her own, I was to say the least, doubtful that his story held any grain of truth whatsoever.

Monday night Syd, who is 4, declared that the next day he was taking his training wheels off, and NO, he did not need the buddy bar.  So Tuesday came, and when Art got home from work Syd asked to have his training wheels taken off and so we obliged.  We walked across the street, set him off, and then this happened...     

The kid just started riding.  Just. Like. That.  Instantly he was off and balancing himself like it was his job.  After we all sorta just stared at shock and amazement and gave a round of high fives, Art turned to me and what did he say?  "See!  Now do you believe me!?!"  Yes, I do believe you now that you took off riding just like Syd.  But I still don't believe the whole crib business.

Congratulations buddy!  We are so proud of you, and your daddy is not surprised in the least ;)