I used to zip around all over our neighborhood, going to parks and even the grocery store with Aubrey and Emma in our bike trailer or “turtle” as they like to call it. But the last time I tried to take them for a ride I barely made it 200 feet from my house before I had to turn around and come home. They had grown and put on some substantial weight. It was obviously time for one or both of them to learn to ride a bicycle and make room for Sadie in The Turtle. There was no way I could pull their combined weight anymore.

My mother, Shuggie has been dying to take Aubrey to school in the bike trailer. She has been talking about it for two weeks, and I have tried to warn her that — Aubrey is much heavier than she used to be —  there is absolutely no way she would make it out of the house without taking Emma with her, and —their combined weight now required the quadriceps of a linebacker to get out of the driveway. I told Shuggie over and over again how I had tried to take the girls for a ride and had to stand on the pedals to get the bike to move even an inch. But she could not be dissuaded.

“It’s sidewalk and roads all the way there. And it’s flat.” Shuggie protested.

“Mom, I’m just telling you...it’s a lot harder than it used to be.”

This morning, Shuggie hurried Aubrey through breakfast and got all of her things ready to go before the sun was even up. I bribed Emma with sips of my coffee (with caramel creamer) to stay at home and Shuggie took off out of the driveway with Aubrey in tow just as the sun was beginning to brighten the sky.

As Aubrey and Shuggie came within sight of the school, Aubrey yelled from the bike trailer, “Shuggie! Is your booty burning?”

My mother laughed as she gasped for air and yelled, “Yes!”

“Well, then stand up on the pedals!” Aubrey said, from her comfortable, chariot-like perch.

Mom rounded the corner and glided past the carpool line on the bicycle as Aubrey began to yell again, “Hey, wait! Shuggie, you are supposed to wait in line!”

“Aubrey, I am not going through the carpool line on a bicycle. I’ll let you out by the sidewalk and you can walk.”

 “OK, fine!” Aubrey huffed as she jumped out of the bike trailer and walked towards school.

Shuggie turned the bike around and headed home with a lighter load, a little less burn in her buns, and a new appreciation for the carpool line.

(Robin O’Bryant is a Mount Pleasant resident and mother of three. Read her blog online at www.robinschicks.com or e-mail her, zebandrobin@hotmail.com)