Thank you, dad!

Whoo-hoo!  Only 3 days until Christmas!!!  Celebrate!

Here's a little not-so-secret-factoid about me- I love to plan ahead for the holidays.  I derive a secret, somewhat smug pleasure in not having to completely stress out and fight the crowds every holiday season.  So a few days ago, I was kinda surprised that when I asked Ryan what he wanted for Christmas, my passive, not-so-direct Ry Ry admitted that, "Maybe I want a bike or something."

I wasn't totally surprised, because his cousins Keni & Riki and friends Naomi & Noah have them.  But I hadn't gotten him one because as of earlier this month, he wasn't exactly zipping around on the barely used tricycle we'd bought him...so I figured we'd try to get him to use it until his 4th birthday, and then spring for a new bike then.

But that was three weeks ago.

Ryan is now flying out the backyard on an old trike (still not the one we paid for, of course), enthusiastically crashing into my parent's laundry pole and howling with delight. And the other day he quickly figured out how to ride his friend's 'big girl' bike with training wheels. Which means mama is in trouble, because Ryan is clearly ready for "a bike or something." I figured it would be no big deal to get one since we hadn't bought him a present anyway (he gets enough from others), and Kona doesn't have crushing hoards of people trampling over each other for Leap Pads (discounted Spam is another story). And with three big box retailers, surely one would have a little bike without sparkly pink unicorns all over it.  Not that Ryan wouldn't have TOTALLY loved that.  Case in point (& brief side bar):

The other day I looked around  and noticed that someone had 'decorated' the entire living room with his ever growing beaded necklaces collection (thanks, mom)!  

You gotta admit, it does spruce the place up a bit.   

But back to finding a bike...

So I quickly hopped online, and saw a whole lot of these messages- sold out, sold out, sold out, sold out.  There were larger, much pricier versions of similar bicycles available, but $96 for a teensy, tiny little bike Ryan would surely outgrow in 6 months?  It seemed a bit extravagant, and certainly not something that thrifty, little Ms. She-who-plans-ahead would want to have to buy.  So I did what I had to do whenever I find in myself in this kind of pickle.  I pulled out the big guns.

I called my daddy.

This is the man who has procured every car we've ever purchased, always for less than we'd ever imagined, usually with an accompanying invitation to the car salesman's house for dinner anytime he wanted.  The man who has gotten every airline ticket change fee we've ever needed waived (with an upgrade to the executive lounge and business class of course).  Daddy don't mess around.

So once I called, guess who hopped into his truck with my mother that very minute and then came rolling back up the driveway in less than an hour with a bigger, badder bike than I ever would have dreamed of, in the right size, that my father somehow talked his way into getting for a little more than a third of the listed price?

Wayne.  That's who.

So dad, I officially forgive you for making us get red ant bites while pulling weeds at ungodly hours on the weekend (when most other children were happily guffawing at the Flintstones)...for making us run and fetch you the remote control because it was four whole feet away from you (even though we were 20 feet away)...for making me move a giant pile of cement dust from one side of the front yard to the other and than deciding that yeah, it was probably better off where it was earlier, so go ahead and move it back...for asking us the same question six times in five minutes anytime any NFL game was being televised...for paying us well below child slave labor wages to move rocks and then still being stingy about granting us the occasional thirst-quenching Tang breaks...

Thankfully, all of your work ethic and sacrifice has rubbed off and rewarded you with a 37-year old, semi-unemployed daughter that continues to live in your home, mooches off of you (thanks for the beef stew bowl the other day!), and makes unreasonable requests that you find her son a highly coveted bicycle only four days before Christmas.  Pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

The big baller himself with his 'two girls' at dinner the other night...

Learning how to play Angry Birds from Young Ryan...

The actual birthday boy of the night!