I Race You

It's 4 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and I'm sitting on a John Deere peddle tractor. Next to me is a 2-year-old boy on a hot pink Big Wheels tricycle. How did I get here?

In all honesty, I blame Lowe's. Yeah, that Lowe's. Augie was ready and rearing to go this morning because he knew it was a Build and Grow Saturday at Lowe's. Today, we built an ice cream truck. It's probably the sturdiest thing we've built so far. When we got home, he ran that thing all over the living room.

He was getting wound up, and we needed to eat lunch, so I told Augie I was taking his truck away. He threatened to karate chop me.

When I called Augie for lunch, he thought he could hide from me by laying down on the couch. It didn't work. I found him.

After lunch was nap, and after nap was a trip to Grandpa's house to pick up a tree for our front yard. It will hopefully be another Steinke transplant success. Augie didn't think the whole tree thing was very fun, though, so Grandpa pulled down this old John Deere tractor from the garage rafters.

But the one wheel was rusted in place and his legs didn't really reach the peddles, so he pointed to the old Big Wheel that was next to the tractor in the rafters. His feet didn't reach the peddles on that either, but it was lower to the ground so he could walk it around.

Of course, since he didn't want the tractor. I took it for a spin.

Which is how we ended up here. Whenever I want Augie to do something without whining -- go to his room so I can change his diapers, come up stairs from the basement,  get in the car to go to the store -- I say, "I race you." He giggles hysterically and tries to beat me to our destination. Since we both had rides, and Augie was whining because the trike didn't move very fast on the gravel, I said, "I race you," and lined up next to him. It was a pretty close race, but I was able to eke out another victory.

But he was a sore loser. So he stole my ride...

...and ate my victory cupcake.