I’m stealing their thunder by breaking the news, but if you read Julie’s Biking During Pregnancy post and did the math, you’ll have surmised there’s a new Wheelha.us family member! I’m eagerly awaiting a biking-with-baby post. Our biking with baby started at 2.5 months in a infant carseat in the trailer, but the Wheelha.uses probably have something more creative planned.

But this post is about all the bigger kids, as I took my two and two of the young Wheelha.usians out for the day. I eased into things with just one spare kid for four on a bike (and a spare bike on the bike).

They look a little crabby because I just tipped over.

It’s a shame to live so close to Seattle’s stellar Burke-Gilman Trail (two blocks in my case, half a block in the Wheelha.us family’s case) yet not be able to easily access it. I can travel one busy block off the most direct route and get to a new crosswalk (which took parents at our elementary school years of campaigning to get and at which cars rarely stop for nine-year olds trying to cross to school, let alone me on the big bike). From the Wheelha.us house, I traveled one block along busy Pacific to get to a narrow curb cut to get up on the sidewalk–which is where I turned a little too slowly and tightly for having a trailing bike, and tipped. And then I still had to ride two sidewalk blocks parallel to the BGT before being able to access it.

But really, they had fun! Look at those happy faces:

They’re also relieved that our bike shop errand (putting the fenders back on the road bike) was over. Not that they didn’t have a great time playing with the shop dog and bins of used parts (seat tubes make excellent horns). And we browsed the used sporting good store next door because I’m not only about errands…just mostly about errands.

Then I traded my bike for Julie’s Madsen bucket bike so I could grab another Wheelha.us kid for even more fun! (And more errands!)

This was my first time carrying so many kids and also my first time riding with e-assist. I wasn’t sure how to read the display and didn’t want to run down the battery so I only used it a bit at the beginning of our excursion, but it was fun! Of course having four kids hidden behind me in the covered bucket got a bit wild. At one point through the giggles I heard “Now all of our helmets are on wrong!” Sheesh.

That was even before we stopped to load up on sugary doughnuts. Doughnuts!

But then they had to endure library book return (sans visit inside the library) and my chiropractor appointment (but they have a train table). There was a bit of storage space in the bucket even with four passengers, but it wasn’t so easy to get to, so I utilized the frame-mounted front rack. I think they sometimes use a basket on the rack, but today I borrowed a bungee to hold my shopping bag (to keep my messenger bag dry because it was raining) on.

And finally playground, french fries, and play cafe.

They’re just lucky I didn’t also drag them grocery shopping as that was initially on the itinerary. The kids may be more relieved than the parents that relaxing school starts back up tomorrow.