Sad Daddy

I have been queried numerous times about whether or not I am disappointed to not have any sons.  Others have hinted that we don’t have a complete family because one didn’t manage to have “one of each”.  Cristin, understandably, feels some animosity towards that being from a family with three girls.  She is a bit hypocritical though because I have heard on numerous occasions that the Howleys select male dogs to “balance things out”.   I assure you that having one or more male poodles running around could not possibly have provided enough counterweight for those three teenage girls.   I honestly don’t care about a lack of sons, the only concern perhaps being that a general lack of male offspring in the Cowles family has led to rapid disappearance of the name.   I did experience a little disappointment though on Phoebe’s birthday.  I had carefully selected a new bike for Phoebe that I thought had nice looking geometry but with colors that would satisfy her.  By nice looking geometry, the top tube absolutely must be straight and the seat tube to top tube ratio has to be just right, something close to what is used for BMX.  I found it and put it together and as you can see in the video below, despite the obvious flash of this machine, it still fell into second place in Phoebe’s hierarchy of birthday gifts.  Importantly, I will note that first place was granted to a Princess Jasmine dress.   Bicycles represent freedom and biking is the one place I feel ok pushing a little bit.  Fortunately she likes riding it and her friend Gavin is a big biking enthusiast.  He is already riding on the track on his micro BMX.