My Little Engine

Lately, we've been reading The Little Engine That Could. Not the short dumb versions, but an old complete edition that was mine as a little girl, with brilliant illustrations and lots of repetition of the phrase, "I think I can."

So, the other day, a neighbor brought by two small girls' bikes that her daughters had grown out of, to see if Tiller might be interested in them. Um, yeah, she's interested!

I planned to go back in and finish some work, but the kids saw the new bikes and any idea of working was out the window on two wheels. "NEW BIKES!!! BIKES FOR ME? MOM, NEW BIKES!! MAMA, DID YOU SEE THE NEW BIKES!? WHY DID THAT LADY LEAVE TWO NEW BIKES? WHY SHE NOT WANT BIKES?"

Indeed, why would someone not want a bike? Certainly not because of the complete chaos-inducing nature of bikes upon those under five.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon in the driveway, Tiller practicing a loop that involved arcing through the back of the garage, down the slight incline of the drive and into the sharp right turn of the sidewalk leading to the front door. (I am not sure what they do once they are at the front steps, but it usually is imagined as Grandma's house, or the bakery, or the MACDonald's drive-through. Frighteningly, Rollie can do an exact impersonation of me at the drive-thru, down to all of our exact orders.) Then Tiller would come whipping back around the corner, with a big grin under her Hello Kitty helmet, ready to fly back into the garage for another loop.

Except that when she came off that sidewalk onto the drive, she would slow down, her little legs struggling to crank up the incline into the garage, and, i realized after a few loops, whispering to herself, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . " and "I did it!" (Dora the Explorer-style, of course) when she made it to the peak and into the garage.

Tiller: My Little Engine The Could