For Nick

Our firstborn son came on a cold December day in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I can remember calling the hospital and the nurse telling me there was no way I was in labor after I described what I was feeling. She was wrong and less than four hours after that call, we had a new baby boy. Good thing we ignored her and went to the hospital anyway.

He was something like four days old when we took him on a twelve hour ride to meet his grandparents. That was the best surprise we ever pulled off... just ask his granny. I think he's had a thing for wheels ever since. Bikes, cars, trucks... doesn't matter what it is. He loves them all and has a knack for making just about anything work.

For his birthday this year we got him a ten-speed he's been wanting only to get it home to find a gear (or something like that) broken. My husband had got the good people at Walmart to knock off about 40% due to the dirt and grime that had accumulated on this bike, but we never noticed anything wrong. Nick noticed it pretty quick when he went outside to polish it up.

Some kids might have said forget it at this point, or asked to take it back for a new one. He knew we got a pretty good price on it, though, so he said he would like to try to fix it. For the last hour, he's been out on the back porch in the cold tinkering away. He comes in periodically to give us updates, smiling the whole time. With his last check-in, his dad went out to see how he was doing.

They're no longer outside, but stretched out in front of the fire in our living room. There's a blanket spread out with a bike wheel and gears and wrenches and greasy rags everywhere. They mumble every now and then to one another and are talking about locking pins and other things I don't understand. I'm thinking they don't entirely agree with one another on how things should be, but I find it entertaining just the same.

A father and his son. When we brought that baby boy home some seventeen years ago, that man instinctively took over. He changed and fed and rocked him, and carried him around to show him the world. He has hugged him and disciplined him and cried with him... anything to try to teach him everything a dad wants his boy to know.

They're both shaking their heads now at the "shoddy workmanship" and the "incompetent person" that put the bike together. Apparently they do agree on this fact. It's almost eleven o'clock on a school night, but I hate to interrupt the man-time that's taking place. Times like these just don't come around that often.

Besides, I do believe they've got it fixed. Now it's just not the wheel in the living room, but the entire bike.

 Happy (Early) Birthday, Nick.