Brianna Walker

Once again, the student has surpassed the teacher. I hold my head high and shake it no, while both my sons taunt me, trying to get me to play follow the leader on their dirt bikes.

They can both ride wheelies — and I’d likely break my tailbone if I even tried. My oldest makes it look so easy as he pops up on his back tire and rides down the road and up the gravel pile. My littlest isn’t quite there yet (thankfully) but there’s little doubt in my mind that he’ll get there before I do — probably because I won’t be trying anytime soon, and they spent a fair allotment of their money on fuel.

It seems like only yesterday we were using hand signals while my oldest learned to ride his 50cc. But now, he’s using the hand signals to me, and they’re most often in the vein of “hurry up!”

It’s fun to watch them grow, but I can feel the transition coming between “ask Mom, she’ll know,” and “Mom, let me show you how it works.”

This summer my oldest began driving stack truck, picking up big bales. That is one of the few pieces of machinery that I don’t drive. I drove harobed, stacking little bales, for three days — about 20-odd years ago. That was enough for me.

I’d rather be picking melons in 100-degree weather. I was constantly dropping bales when that second table lifted, then I’d be spending the next half-hour heaving bales around that weighed as much as I did. I was so afraid of bending a push-off foot that I would sweat excessively setting every stack down.

I’m sure if I had stuck with it, I’d have learned how to do it, but there were always so many other things I’d rather do — like alphabetize the bills. A position I have stood firm on all these years — I don’t stack hay. I’ll irrigate it, cut it, rake it, bale it or haul it to sale. But I don’t stack.

So it was with mixed feelings when my oldest decided that he needed to learn to stack (to keep up with the neighbor kids who have been stacking for several years now).

My husband gave him the tutorial on all the knobs, switches and levers, and I watched my son’s face as he eagerly attempted to commit them all to memory. We watched for a few minutes as he started out across the field, lowering the arm smoothly as he came to his first bale. He made it look simple. A few hours later he called with a question. He may as well have been speaking Latin for as much sense as it made me. I literally had to say, “Ask your dad.”

It’s exciting to see your kids take up your sports and hobbies, but sometimes I wish they wouldn’t outgrow your skill set so quickly — it makes it hard to keep up!

Ever since my son watched a friend do an aerial flip on a wakeboard behind our boat, he has upped his game. He hasn’t done an aerial one, but he can now do a 360 on the wakeboard — a trick that I can only do on a kneeboard. I taught him the only trick I know how to do on a wakeboard — and that was just how to get up. I ski — that wakeboarding stuff is for kids!

I wonder what will happen once he decides he wants to try slaloming? Makes me think of playing pingpong with my grandpa. He loved pingpong and he was exceptionally good at it — even if he did cheat a bit with English serves. He never called it cheating, though. He’d just laugh and say, “Sucker’s lead,” then let you serve the next round.

We had a table set up in the garage, and we’d play it almost every night before bed. He and I each had paddles with our chosen names on them: his was Champ, mine Maven. I lost over and over and over. When I’d come close, he’d start saying things like “Your palms are getting sweaty,” and sure enough, I’d lose again.

Then, once, I won. It was a fluke. But that fluke lasted three games. It was about that time that my grandpa suddenly felt the need to park the car in the garage, so the pingpong table only got set up for special occasions.

Maybe I won’t teach my son how to slalom just yet. After all, every teacher needs a trick or two to keep the students in the appropriate amount of awe. And making dirty laundry clean and magically appear folded in dressers isn’t a trick that any of my family is impressed with.