Bakfiets Love

By: Kendra Davidson | Tags: bakfiets, bicycle, dutch bikes, love, Motherhood, story, urkai | Comments: 0

It can be difficult to put into words, and I often tell people who come into the store, that riding a bakfiets is magical. You don’t get it, and you don’t believe in it, until you ride one with your child. My bakfiets means so much more to me, it is an extension of me that I never thought possible. A car is an inanimate object, and so is a bakfiets, but because I pedal it, I bring it to life, and I become more alive.

Before I became pregnant, I often rolled my eyes at friends who rubbed their growing bellies and claimed that they were completely in love with the little being growing inside of them and they would do anything for them. I didn’t understand it, until I became pregnant. Your pregnant belly becomes part of your personal space, it is the part of you, you will do anything to protect. Then, when that day came that our little man arrived into the world, and my arms couldn’t carry him around all day, I relied heavily on my Ergo, and my stroller. Those 2 things, again, became part of my personal space, no stranger could come close, and that part of me I would protect with my life.

When the day came that our little man could no longer fit in front in the Ergo, it became distressing. I felt like I lost a limb. It is unexplainable, but I felt like I was losing my closeness and connection with our him, I actually experienced grief over the loss. I still had the stroller, but I knew I didn’t have long before that would be gone too.

The day that our Bakfiets arrived, and Russell sat in it, and we went for a ride. I felt that magic, it was the same feeling I had having Russell as an infant against my chest, the bakfiets and him, became part of my personal space bubble.  My son, is enveloped in that space, sitting up front on the bench. Just like wearing him in front, we connected without as many words, but the deep connection was satisfying to us both. He feels safe, and so do I.

Now, I have a chatter box of a 4 year old, who gets excited each and every time he gets into the bakfiets, he knows that with every errand, comes an adventure! We chat, we stop at different parks, we bring along his bike, we sometimes find odd kids attempting to climb into the box while it is parked. We meet new people and often stop to admire something we didn’t know existed if it weren’t for the route we had to take with the bakfiets.