A couple of nights ago, just before bedtime, we stopped over at Tim and Dayna’s to drop off our old patio furniture, which they were taking for their yard. It was warm day, heading towards twilight but not dark yet, time to start thinking about heading indoors. Norah and I had been working in the garden while Brian ferried stuff over to the Smiths, but we went along for the last run, to say hello. The Smiths were all outside, too–Tim in the vegetable garden and Dayna and Aurora with their feet in her little wading pool. We spent some time chatting, knowing it was really time to get both the girls to bed. Aurora had her tricycle out, so of course Norah had to ride it. And it was instant obsession.

“Tricycle,” she said. “Tricycle. Tricycle. Wheels. Tricycle.” We counted the wheels, helped push her along, told her she was doing great. “Tricycle. Tricycle.”

Then Aurora got all up in her face, half kidding, half frustrated: “Say something else! Say anything but tricycle! Say potato!”

“Tricycle.”

“No! Not tricycle! Don’t say tricycle! Say leaf!”

“….Tricycle.”

“No! Don’t say tricycle. Say window!”

“….Tricycle.” And I think Aurora might’ve been really mad, but I was laughing, so she was laughing, so Norah was playing to her crowd, and we were all cracking up.

When it was time to go, there were tears, and the whole way home, we heard, plaintively from the backseat, “Tricycle. Tricycle.”

The next afternoon, of course, we decided to buy her a tricycle.

And oh, I have never seen a girl happier. All through the store, it was “Tricycle. Tricycle.” In the car on the way to dinner, it was “Tricycle. Tricycle.” And when we got home to try it out, she was in heaven.

We went up and down the street for a long time. She can’t really work the pedals yet, but she’s tall for her age, so she can reach the ground and push herself along that way. And she loves to be pushed down the street fast fast fast. The basket at the back is always filled with her treasures, pebbles and pinecones and little twigs.

Soon she decided to put Doll in the seat and give her a ride. “Stroller,” she said, pushing the tricycle down the sidewalk.

For days after, the first word she said every morning was “Tricycle.” And it took a lot of convincing to get her to agree that we should wait for the sun to come up and the dew to burn off before we could go out and take a ride. “Tricycle.”