May 5, 2002 - Sunday
It's been a while since the boys' mother and I took a bike ride together. It's something that we used to do a fair amount, even though we lived in the city. We would ride on a local paved (and often crowded) bike path or navigate the city roads out to the relative openness and somewhat quieter streets of the near suburbs. When we had Harry, bike riding tapered off. We were able to bring him with us in a bike seat and the serenity of our new home town is wonderful for biking, but schedules and a second pregnancy pretty much ended that.

Of course, having two young kids has really ended much of any casual time and that's not really surprising. It's what everyone with experience says will happen. These days it's hard to plan beyond the next hour when the two boys are at home and needing attention. Everyone also says it gets easier with time, and I have not doubt about that. When Harry's not being "two" he's a wonderful boy who's already far more independent than he used to be and Jeremy will get there, too, soon enough. But, right now it feels like we're launching a startup company and putting in the long work days to get it off the ground. As with building anything rewarding, there's definite satisfaction in the process - Jeremy smiles and laughs and Harry now sings in his high singing voice as he diligently picks out two-fingered counterpoint on the piano - but, there's little time to stop to reflect.

Fifteen years ago today is the day that the boys' mother and I see as when we started dating. That was a long time ago, long before our two boys arrived. We were younger and had time for biking and traveling and going to a movie. It would be almost five years until we would marry and another seven before much thought of a future Harry. Harry inadvertently helps remind us of those easygoing times by pulling our old photo albums off the shelf and the recollections that squeeze in-between the diaper changes and toddler redirecting help fill in what our company-building has put on relative hold. But, today for a few hours, we left someone else to do the distracting and the diapering and the two of us took a bike ride along the river and past the trees in the distant suburbs to which Harry effectively brought us. As we rode along the new area bike path we must have past at least three or four family with mother and father on rollerblades and two children moving at a similar pace on tiny bikes. I look at them differently now than I did in those days years ago. Now, they are chapters that we will probably write someday, too. Yet for today, it was just the two of us, with no kids and no pressing needs to attend to, adding another short page to fifteen years of being young, just now in a prettier hometown.


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