This is Elena. She is four and three-fourths years old. She just learned how to ride a two-wheel bike with no training wheels.
This is Renee. She is two and three-fourths years old. She just learned how to pedal a tricycle. This is, by the way, the very same tricycle she fell off exactly one year ago and broke her arm.
Elena is the youngest kid we've ever had to learn to ride a bike. She is, actually, the youngest kid I've ever known to learn ow to ride a bike. She's got a lot to live up to. It's tough being on the tail end of a big family- no one wants to be told that they're "too little" to do all the cool stuff the other kids do, and I'm quite sure that played a part in her motivation to learn how to ride. She got tired of watching the other kids hop on to their bikes and leave her eating dust and crying
"Hey, guys, wait for me! Wait up! C'mon! MOM, they kids won't WAIT for meeeeee!!!!"
One day a few weeks ago, the kids had some friends over, and they all wanted to ride bikes. We had a few extra bikes, but needed to take the training wheels off Elena's bike for another kid to ride. I never got around to putting the training wheels back on, despite Elena asking me to do it about 389 times over the course of two days. One evening, she had her training-wheel-less bike out in the circle, and was just kind of scooting around on it as the other kids rode circles around her. Now, I had tried to teach her to ride her bike a few times before this summer without great success, and was not feeling up to another round of running in circles stooped over trying to help a small child balance and not crash in to parked cars. I told her I'd pay her five bucks if she could teach herself to ride her bike all by herself. Inside of an hour, that kid was zipping around the circle with the rest of the kids! Lazy parenting pays off sometimes.
Our small garage now contains 9 two-wheel bikes, 7 scooters, and 2 tricycles. We also have squeezed in there a two-seat bike trailer, a jogging stroller, a big red wagon, a red cozy coup kid-size car, 5 sleds, three dozen soccer balls, and equipment for every sport known to man, besides all the regular garage stuff like lawn mowers and wheelbarrows and junk we don't know where else to put. A few times a year, we clean it out and organize everything. We line up all the bikes in size order and toss out all the dead soccer balls. This lasts for exactly one day, then it's back to stacking bikes on top of each other.
This is Elena. She is four and three-fourths years old. She just learned how to ride a two-wheel bike with no training wheels.
This is Renee. She is two and three-fourths years old. She just learned how to pedal a tricycle. This is, by the way, the very same tricycle she fell off exactly one year ago and broke her arm.
Elena is the youngest kid we've ever had to learn to ride a bike. She is, actually, the youngest kid I've ever known to learn ow to ride a bike. She's got a lot to live up to. It's tough being on the tail end of a big family- no one wants to be told that they're "too little" to do all the cool stuff the other kids do, and I'm quite sure that played a part in her motivation to learn how to ride. She got tired of watching the other kids hop on to their bikes and leave her eating dust and crying "Hey, guys, wait for me! Wait up! C'mon! MOM, they kids won't WAIT for meeeeee!!!!"
One day a few weeks ago, the kids had some friends over, and they all wanted to ride bikes. We had a few extra bikes, but needed to take the training wheels off Elena's bike for another kid to ride. I never got around to putting the training wheels back on, despite Elena asking me to do it about 389 times over the course of two days. One evening, she had her training-wheel-less bike out in the circle, and was just kind of scooting around on it as the other kids rode circles around her. Now, I had tried to teach her to ride her bike a few times before this summer without great success, and was not feeling up to another round of running in circles stooped over trying to help a small child balance and not crash in to parked cars. I told her I'd pay her five bucks if she could teach herself to ride her bike all by herself. Inside of an hour, that kid was zipping around the circle with the rest of the kids! Lazy parenting pays off sometimes.
Our small garage now contains 9 two-wheel bikes, 7 scooters, and 2 tricycles. We also have squeezed in there a two-seat bike trailer, a jogging stroller, a big red wagon, a red cozy coup kid-size car, 5 sleds, three dozen soccer balls, and equipment for every sport known to man, besides all the regular garage stuff like lawn mowers and wheelbarrows and junk we don't know where else to put. A few times a year, we clean it out and organize everything. We line up all the bikes in size order and toss out all the dead soccer balls. This lasts for exactly one day, then it's back to stacking bikes on top of each other.
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