The weather has been beyond beautiful the last little while and it had been too long since we'd had a good jogging session, so today the kids and I went to the park for a run. The three older children all made biking goals this year, so they all rode to the park together. This gave me plenty of room in the back of the van to load the jogging stroller, Zoë's bike, and two of Alexander's bikes (his pedal bike, which he didn't want to ride but ended up riding, and his balance bike, which he insisted we bring along and which he didn't end up riding).
I have a baby seat sitting in the garage but it doesn't seem to be able to attach to any of our bikes, otherwise I might have been persuaded to ride to the park with the kids. But instead I drove the younger three and all their gear (and all the water bottles) to the park. We completed our jog, did some plein air painting, played at the park, and then headed home.
Once there, Zoë and Alexander obediently grabbed "stuff" from the van to carry inside, dropped everything in a pile just inside the door, and went to get themselves a snack, left me outside to deal with everything else (bikes, screaming babies, the whole kit and caboodle).
I got Phoebe out of her seat and let her toddle around while I started unloading the back of the van. I took out the balance bike and put that away. Then I took out Alexander's pedal bike and just about put it away, but then I thought I would put Zoë's bike away first, since she has an easier time moving his bike to get to hers (compared to how difficult it is for him to move her bike to get to his). So her bike can go against the garage wall and then his bike can lean against hers.
Like most things in our house, bikes have to be doubled up to be put away. There are just too many of them to store them single-file. So I left Alexander's pedal bike behind Andrew's car while I reached inside the back of the van to pull out Zoë's bike.
Keep in mind that Alexander's pedal bike has training wheels, so it stands upright on its own. This is good, because it meant that when Phoebe decided to push it back over to me it didn't topple over on top of her.
It was also bad because it meant that as I was backing my way out of the back of the van carrying a bike, I toppled over on top of Alexander's bike that was suddenly parked directly behind my ankles. I didn't even hear Phoebe do it (since I was too busy grunting and clanging in the back of the van as I wrestled with Zoë's bike)!
So, there I was, a Mommy sandwhich—one bike under me, one bike on top of me.
Not my finest moment.