23 months.

That’s what I have been asking fellow parents at my son’s daycare.

The appropriate age is evidently around three years old from what people are telling me: My son will be 2 years-old in two weeks.

My wife and I were sort of planning on Jack’s Christmas gift this year being his first tricycle, but after learning he may be too young, or not tall enough to reach the peddles, we began looking at other options.

Then we arrived here in Sacramento for our vacation and I saw that my mother-in-law had bought Jack aThomas the Train Tough Trike.

No, he’s not old enough for it nor is he tall enough to reach the peddles; he’s currently 34 inches tall.

But, that doesn’t seem to matter at all to him.

He’s put a lot of miles on his trike in the short amount of time we’ve been here. Part of our routine each morning is I walk next to him as he drives around the block.

Jack loves rolling down the driveway into the gutter curve in the sidewalk, as it creates a roller coaster type of effect.

“I go fast. Go fast. Daddy?”

That means I need to run to the end of the driveway ahead of him to catch him. I know when I was his age, I wouldn’t have had the bravery to be such an Evel Knievel.

What’s funny is that because his feet can’t reach the pedals, he has to ride his trike Fred Flintstone style.

However, this is the first toy vehicle he’s ever been able to steer, so the fact he’s not using his Tough Trike to its full potential doesn’t matter at all to him.

One of my favorite parts about escorting him on his morning ride is that fact that Jack refuses (!) to even leave the front porch if his half dozen toys aren’t with him.

No, you don’t see his rubber eyeball from Halloween, or his toy trains, or cars, or plastic made-in-China animals in Jack’s hands.

That’s because they’re inside the secret compartment underneath his seat on the trike.

He treats his special take-along toys like magic fuel to make the thing work. No toys… no fuel.

About every 15 minutes, he’ll awkwardly shimmy off his trike, open up the seat, hold each one of his toys for a few seconds, then place them back inside and return on his journey.

I think he likes the security of knowing he hasn’t ran out of magic fuel.

Now as we wrap up our vacation week in California, we know we will have to leave Jack’s Tough Trikebehind on the West Coast.

It would cost 20 bucks to ship it to Nashville, but only 2 dollars more just to buy a new one.

I have a feeling the 2nd option will come into fruition.