Tender Mercies

Yesterday Niles and I had a bit of a rough afternoon. Malcolm has been home sick for the past two days with tonsillitis and Niles isn't happy that he is going to school by himself without his big brother. On top of that he hated lunch and had a ton of homework which made for one funky kid. Thankfully I was given an extra amount of patients and was able to defuse the situation. After all homework was done and he ate, Niles was feeling a bit better...enough that he wanted to bike with me while I walked my mile last night.
Hoping the ride would be the icing on the mood changing cake I agreed to let he come with me. Niles grabbed a bike, I grabbed an ipod and we both strapped on our tennis shoes. After about a quarter mile I saw something I didn't think possible...a smile from my youngest child! Life is good, but it got better.
Niles would ride up ahead and then come zooming back, ride ahead and come zooming back...on the fourth or fifth time he came back he was wearing a huge smile on his face, so big that even his eyes were smiling and his hands were in the air snapping his fingers....He was riding "No Handed" for the first time!!!!!!!
Talk about your Kodak moments..if only I had the camera. I told him when we got back to the house I wanted to video him riding without his hands. As you can imagine, he proudly agreed. Sadly by the time we got home it was raining! So this afternoon I shot this footage...This is one of the Lords tender mercies, pure joy...