1. Start with a passionate love of bike riding. Daydream of your own childhood when you rode your bike every day in the summer. Relive moments of bliss when you reached the top of an endorphin-producing hill and were greeted with a blast of sunshine on your face and a cool breeze on your sweaty head. Vow that you will teach your child how to ride a bike so he too can experience pure happiness.

2. Riding that nostalgia wave, buy him a bike for his birthday. Which is in Febuary. In the middle of a snow storm.

3. Wake your son up at 6 a.m. on his birthday and make him sit on the cold bike in the middle of a bright living room. Speak very fast about how wonderful bike-riding is going to be and ride him around on the carpet while gesturing excitedly.

4. Try not to look too discouraged when he says he wants to get off and go back to bed.

5. Pass by the bike every day, which is still in the middle of living room, while winter labors on.

6. At the first sign of thaw, take him outside and enthusiastically begin formal training.

7. Come back in after five minutes.

8. Begin a cognitive behavioral therapy program where you make your child try to ride the bike every day in the hopes of overcoming his fear through repeated exposure.

9. Listen patiently as your child explains his fear of breaking his arm. Be supportive. Explain that the likelihood of such a thing happening is small. Extol the virtues of the inner ear.

10. Untangle your child from his bike.

11. Break down bike riding into separate steps. Tell him all he has to do is push off and then stop.

12. Add in “Sit on the seat.”

13. Then, add in “Continue pedaling.”

14. Realize bike riding is a ridiculously complicated task to learn and wonder how anyone ever manages to master it.

15. Start visualization exercises with your child where he sees himself riding his bike.

16. Watch him ride 5 feet.

17. Repeat 15 times, each time smothering him in kisses for positive reinforcement.

18. Re-enact the old Nintendo Paperboy video game on his new bike and accidentally knock a plant off the porch when throwing a rolled-up newspaper.

19. Clean up dirt.

20. Explain to husband why the plant was a necessary casualty in your teaching plan.

21. Perform a naming ceremony to strengthen the bond between boy and bike.

22. Take your child out to a parking lot and run along side of him while he rides in a circle.

23. Vow to start jogging again.

24. Get on your bike and ride together around campus.

25. When he stands up to pump his pedals to go uphill, rejoice and feel the sunshine on your face and the cool breeze in your hair.

26. When he takes a turn a little too fast scream in panic: “Stop! You’re going to break your arm!”

27. Go out for ice cream.

Which brings us to Marble Slab Creamery. I’ll be honest, the ice cream was as much for myself as it was for Jade. I don’t know how he felt, but I was experiencing a mixture of exhilaration and complete emotional exhaustion.

Apart from bike riding memories, I also have much more tame, but still just as wonderful, memories of eating ice cream in the summertime. But our ice cream stand was nothing like Marble Slab – they aren’t messing around.

There were two different kinds of chocolate and three kinds of vanilla, in addition to an assortment of other flavors including peanut butter, bubblegum and sweet cream. On top of all the flavors you can add “Mixin’s” like sprinkles, almonds and marshmallows. Even candy bars are now just ingredients.

The wildest part is the cones. They dip them in chocolate (either dark or white) and then roll them in sprinkles, peanuts, or candy bars. Or you can get a cone shaped like a bowl, which is also dipped in chocolate and rolled in more candy.

If you’re having trouble absorbing all the different permutations, don’t despair.

Marble Slab has a menu of combination creations that do the work for you. I didn’t get one this time, but I’m putting Cherries Jubilee, Snickerdoodle and the Tipsy Sailor on my summer to-do list.

Jade was feeling particularly adventurous after his first solo bike ride and chose cinnamon ice cream. I would never choose cinnamon, and I was impressed that he jumped in with such wild abandon.

I chose a hot fudge sundae with butter pecan ice cream. It had whipped cream and a cherry and lots of hot gooey fudge around the outside.

Jeff said he was getting a waffle bowl, dipped in chocolate and rolled in Heath bars, with mocha, coffee and swiss chocolate ice cream. I thought he was joking since he had just polished off a Heavy D burrito from Barberitos, but he was quite serious.

We sat outside in the sunshine and I started thinking about the bike trail that goes down State of Franklin to this part of town.

I envisioned the three of us biking our way over to Marble Slab on hot summer afternoons. (Maybe even occasionally bursting into song.)

But I’m not too worried if it doesn’t happen: they deliver.

Marble Slab Creamery is located at 3020 Franklin Terrace.

For more information, call 423-262-0290 or visit their Web site at www.marbleslab.com.

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