Chris put Monkey's together and we waited excitedly for Christmas.
To our dismay, the tricycle wasn't a very good fit for Monkey. Her balance is really lacking and we have to take the littlest detail into consideration. I told Chris to take the tricycle to the basement and I went on-line to find the replacement.
Saturday morning after my mind cleared a little, I called around until I found a store that had the tricycles in stock. Not only did I totally luck out on finding one in stock two days after Christmas, but I was blessed to get someone to help me who actually knew what they were doing and was very knowledgeable about the tricycles. The lady told me that she had helped other parents from The Bell Center and had learned a lot from them. So, a big "thank you" to Homewood Toy & Hobby for all of their help.
As you can imagine, nothing can be simple for Monkey, not even buying a tricycle. We had to take many different things into consideration, including the center of gravity of the tricycle, the size - because her little legs aren't very long, we had to make sure we could buy a seat belt for the tricycle and also toe clips for her little feet.
Oh...she also suckered us out of a new baby bottle for her baby while we were checking out.
One small road block came up, we still needed the blocks for the pedals. After stopping at the second store, they were nice enough to call a location in Cahaba Heights and thankfully, they had the blocks in stock - and would hold them until we got there! Needless to say, we spent our morning between Homewood and Cahaba Heights and somewhere in between it hit us what we were doing...
Here we are driving all over town trying to find just the right accessories needed to fit a tricycle. A tricycle for our baby who is almost two and cannot balance herself on the littlest tricycle that we can find. We were buying accessories for our baby who can't climb onto the tricycle, doesn't know how to turn the handlebars, much less keep her little feet in the toe clips. When it hit us like a ton of bricks, I looked at Chris and told him how very blessed we are. Sure, we were spending an enormous amount of money on a tricycle and having to modify this tricycle by spending even more money, but wow....our baby was blessed enough to be able to sit up on a tricycle and find pure joy in it! We never knew if that day would come. We are more blessed than anyone realizes!
Look at her! She doesn't know that other babies just jump right on and go, she just realizes how happy she is when we love her and push her around on her tricycle.
I wouldn't trade her or the situation for anything. I thank God for this experience. I am thankful it is me who gets to experience it all!
