oh the rewards kids want

We are almost finished with our babysitting extravangza, only one more day. I thought today was goinng to be a rough one but it turned out okay. The boys and I decided to go bike riding on the trail after John's piano lesson. Thomas has desperately wanted to go for a bike ride since he learned how to ride his bike without his training wheels. He wanted to go to a parking lot, but since it was Wednesday there weren't any empty lots to choose from so we decided on the trail. He attempted to ride his bike and got scared and decided that he didn't want to ride his bike after all. At this point John had already taken off down the trail on his bike so there was no turning around or we would never catch up to John. I also figured that Thomas just needed to get use the trail and that he would give it a second or third try. Thomas wasn't in the mood to keep trying. He screamed and cried and carried on about how he wanted to go home and he didn't want to push his bike. He was being completely unreasonable and I kept walking because I didn't pack up the boys' bike, lance's stroller, and switch his carseat just for 5 minutes on the trail. We walked down the train trestle and Thomas screamed the whole way there. On the way back I tried talking to Thomas about why he felt that he couldn't ride the bike and what he was scared of. I then asked him what reward might he want if he rode his bike. I was trying to figure out what was reasonable, I assumed he would want a new webkin, hotwheels cars, a dvd, or computer game, but what he said took me back. He wanted a lunchable for lunch. A lunchable, that was doable so we tried riding with me helping and me running back to grab Lance every now and then. Thomas did great, it is amazing hard he tried now that there was a reward to be won. Thomas rode most of the mile back to the car. After our bike ride/walk he headed to the grocery store for the lunchables and then headed home for lunch. After lunch the boys read in their rooms and I attempted to get Lance to take a nap. After nap/reading time we headed off to the pool. When we got there the pool was closed because of thunder, but it opened after about 15 minutes and the boys were able to get all of their energy out. The day flew by, only one more day to go.