Biking with my boy

Noah's buddies used to live right down the street, but they moved about a mile away.  The safest way to bike there involves making several turns. Noah has no sense of direction (Sarah can't remember that phrase and keeps saying he has no sense of humor. She has no sense of sense!), so someone always has to ride over there with him.  I told him I'd take him over there today if he took the lead and tried to find his own way.  He did very well until he got to one intersection and had no idea where he was.  I think if you're not born with that general consciousness of where you are in space, it's nearly impossible to get it.  No amount of training has produced any results.  He gets utterly lost at the same place every time.

He may not know how to get where he's going, but he sure can get there FAST!  I was pedaling hard, and I was always at least a block behind him, panting.  The whole thing reminded me of another time when I was on a bike ride with him, and I realized I haven't told my blog friends this story (since it happened pre-blog), and you might enjoy a laugh at my expense, so here goes.  I'll start with a picture, to keep your interest and show you the bike seat referred to in the story.

It's a cloudy morning in May.  I only have one child, and he's almost two years old, full of energy, needs to get out of the house.  I load him into his seat attached to my bike.  Glancing at the clouds, I pack jackets for us. We head out to one of our favorite playground destinations about two and half miles from home.  As we're playing, I notice the clouds getting darker, and it's starting to look pretty ominous.  I give little Noah the five-minute warning, so he can start preparing himself.  If I don't give him a warning, this is what can happen:

Suddenly the tornado sirens start blaring, and I panic. No time for a gentle withdrawal, I grab the kid and stuff him into the bike seat.  I don't even strap him in.  It takes at least twenty minutes to bike home.  I take off hard and put the bike in the highest gear.  I stand up and pedal as hard as I can, and soon feel like I'm going to have a heart attack.  The whole time, I'm planning what I'm going to do if I see the tornado coming at us.  I decide I'll crawl into the nearest drainpipe.  I entertain fantasies about somehow yanking off a manhole cover and going underground.  I come screeching into the garage in record ten-minute time, whip the kid out of the seat, and rush us to the basement.  My legs feel like flaming, quivering rubber, and I can barely make it down the stairs.  I turn on the TV to see where the tornado is, and there's no weather updates.  No watch or warning boxes on any station.  Just Barney singing the friend song . I'm confused.  Slowly it dawns on me...it's 10:10 a.m.  It's the first Tuesday of the month. This was a test of the emergency broadcast system.  This was only a test.