It was like waking up early on Christmas morning, seeing that Santa’s come, and being forced to merely gaze at the spoils while your little brother slept.

&uot;When can we ride them?&uot; was the question coming from little mouths bundled in little coats all around the brand new tricycle track at West Primary School Thursday morning.

Eleven brand new, sparkling tricycles lined the cement track, a red balloon tied to the handlebars of each, all awaiting their first trip around the curves.

But it was too muddy. So after a ceremonious ribbon cutting in front of all the children and many community members, the tricycles went back into their storage shed, rider-less, to wait for a sunny day.

The tricycle track has been a highly anticipated arrival at the school since September when Principal Cindy Idom found out a grant application for the project had been accepted.

Last year, physical education teacher Charm Powell used national weight charts to measure the health of the school’s pre-K through first-graders. She wasn’t happy with the results.

&uot;Close to 20 percent (were overweight),&uot; she said. &uot;It was high. Two out of 10.&uot;

On a visit to a Brookhaven school, Idom saw a tricycle track and decided West Primary had to have one. First-grade teacher Pam Hilton went to work on a grant proposal to Entergy to fund the track, tricycles and storage shed.

&uot;It’s just another avenue to help the children,&uot; Hilton said. &uot;We had a large number of obese children from pre-K to first-grade and that shouldn’t be happening. That was a concern.&uot;

The tricycles will become a part of Powell’s PE class in an attempt to continue to promote fitness. A donation from the Brain Injury Association fitted every West child with a helmet Thursday. The helmets will stay at the school and be used when riding the tricycles.

The center of the track will also contain several picnic tables to form a learning center.

In addition to the grant from Entergy, donations from community members and Partners in Education made the project complete, Hilton said.

The track area also includes a shrub in honor of each donor. The donors were honored in Thursday’s ceremony.

More donations are encouraged though, Powell said. A PE class consists of about 20 students at a time, but so far the school only has 11 tricycles. Powell said she would like to purchase 12 more.