A Moonlight Bike Ride

Yesterday evening was rather serendipitous.  For some reason over the last week or two, I have been waxing nostalgic for the days when the kids were very small.  Maybe it's the season, or maybe I am often reminded how quickly the kids are growing up.  Usually we are so busy there's not much time to think of "the old days", and maybe that is exactly why I have been doing just that.  Little things trigger memories, like when I was in Target a few days ago to make a return and I decided to go ahead and buy the Halloween candy for trick-or-treaters while I was there.  As I hastily picked out a huge bag that was priced right and tossed it in the cart, I remembered it was not too long ago that the kids liked to pick out the candy themselves.   

On a walk I took recently I was on my usual path through a newer section of our neighborhood, and I remembered when it was still dirt road and trees.  When the kids were little, we would rent a flatbed trailer for Halloween, and buy a bunch of hay to spread around on it, then spend hours taking the neighborhood kids and parents on hay rides.  Now those same streets are paved with homes lining them, so we don't do the hay rides, but we do have pizza parties before trick-or-treating.  

So when yesterday evening rolled around, I announced that I was going on my walk since I had missed it that morning.  My youngest son very excitedly asked if he could go too and I told him sure, that we could check out the holiday decorations together.  We started out walking, but then decided to ride our bikes instead to cover more territory.  So off we went and the first thing we saw was the bold, orange sliver of a huge moon, the rest of which was still in shadow.  It was awesome.  I told him that I remembered the days when his dad and I would make a nest for he and his sister in their red wagon, and we put their big brother in the stroller, and head out for a moonlight stroll.  More often than not, all three would be fast asleep by the time we came back home.

But the little red wagon has since been replaced by a big green bike, and my little one is all grown up.  Sortof.  (He turned nine last week). He was full of conversation and energy as we cruised along under the moon and stars, and I loved every minute of it.   After seeing a brightly lit spider decoration, he enthusiastically shared with me every detail about tarantulas that he is learning about in his class.  It was pretty fascinating stuff.  He followed that up with some bicycle engineering ideas, and so the conversation went.  I was just happy to be with him, chatting like we used to when he was little and his brother and sister had gone off to school.  We even stopped at a park together to swing for awhile.   Just like the old days.  Except back then he couldn't yet ride a bike, therefore he would have fallen asleep in the wagon, and we would not have shared a conversation as we did tonight.   

I find that the different stages of life bring joy in different ways, and each has something special to offer.  The key is to enjoying each one and appreciating the shared, unexpected moments along the way.   

A moonlight bike ride is definitely one of those moments.