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Someone must like my family. Yesterday my wife towed Inga from childcare to the garage (to pick up the car) in our wonderful Papoose Caboose. Then she towed Inga from Joshua’s school home whilst Joshua rode his bike.

When she came to put the trailer away, she found that one of the axle pins (the little thing that holds the wheel on) was missing. But where could it be? Not in the car (garage -> school); nor in our driveway…

A phone call this morning located the offending article at Inga’s childcare, about 8km of riding before its loss was noted.

Oh well, no-one was hurt. We’ll be looking for a secondary security mechanism for these pins before we next take Inga out in it!

You could buy a balancing bike made for the job, or just do what we did and rip the pedals and chain off a cheap hand-me-down. Either way, getting a child to balance on a bicycle is surely the best way to start them off.

Inga spent about two months on her balancing bike, plus time on a ‘real’ bike with training wheels. On Good Friday she announced that she would take her training wheels off so that she could ride over the grass and bumps on the local BMX track more easily.

So off came the training wheels. Inga has not looked back. She will celebrate her third birthday next month, and ride rings round any same-age guests, plus some of the older siblings too!

It’s been 35ºC today in Melbourne, and it is still weeks until summer begins. I chose to ride to work despite knowing it would be hot comming home. Two water bottles later and I managed to stay hydrated. There have, however, been a few people keeling over with the heat.

The kids and Morwenna went swimming to avoid the oppression. Apparently there were too many kids on the water slide for Joshua to enjoy it; he only went down once… Inga loved jumping in to the deep outside pool but would not do somersaults on Morwenna’s back like Joshua did yesterday. (He is currently learning the ‘tuck’ position at gymnastics, which he practices at the pool when jumping in.)
For those interested in the numbers, the Bureau of Meteorology forecast is here. Monash University has a live page here. There are also other funky weather pages, but mostly they indicate global warming, which is too contentious to mention in the West.

Joshua was five years old on Friday. Time flies. We hosted twenty of his friends at an indoor play centre for the Saturday morning, with ‘party food’ and a home made cake. When I get my act together I shall post some photos and a video of the proceedings.

Inga thinks that she is five years old. She can do all the things that the bigkids did, including the biggest scarriest slide at the centre. And she ate considerably more than the Birthday boy…. She must be growing.
Somehow we have persuaded Joshua that he may only open a couple of presents a day - extending his birthday for a week or more! He seems content with this, and it gives him time to explore each gift before discarding it, rather than having a heap of touched toys and books that will get put into cupboards and never seen again.

Christmas cakes are in the local supermarkets. Why? Australia doesn’t need a pagan festival in the middle of its summer, particularly one involving heavy fat-laden sugary foods!  HoHum. On we go.