Overly Dramatic

Luke and I had an agreement that when he turned 4, we would get rid of the training wheels on his bike, and so the day after his birthday, that's exactly what we did. Ever since, we've been working on learning to ride without them, but for the first two weeks or three weeks, we were going out once a week or less. It's been a long time since I've learned to ride a bike, but as it turns out, once a week isn't often enough. So now, as soon as McMoose is home from work, the very first thing I do is take Luke for a quick ride down the sidewalk and back. He steers and I keep him balanced.

The first day, it took us 10 minutes and involved 800 million stops/near-falls. The second day, it was about 5 minutes and maybe about 10 stops/near-falls. Today (aka: the fourth day,) there were no stops, it took about 2 minutes, and I was able to let go for a couple of seconds at a time and even when I was holding on, it required minimal effort on my part. I mean, the balancing part required minimal effort. The running down the street, half-bent over, trying to keep up with a bike going downhill in the 80-degree weather? That part left me quite out of breath. In any case, I end up repeating things like, "Use your body to balance the bike," and, "Steer, steer, STEER!" and, "STOP looking at the birds...just look straight ahead of you!" When I say that last one, he inevitably replies with, "But Mama, I can't just look ahead, I HAVE to blink sometimes or else I will DIE."