A Day to Remember

Today was one of those amazing days, the morning was crazy as I jumped from second hand store to second hand store looking for a Queen sized bed frame, only to find one in the store 10 doors down.  But in our scrounging we found a little bike with 2 wheels and peddles (all of which looked like they came from other broken bikes) for $10.

Jack has been using a 2 wheel bike for a while but it is one of those bikes that has no peddles and teaches them to balance, the idea being that they go straight from that to a regular bike without training wheels.  When we talked about getting a bike with peddles he was a bit scared, he talked about worrying that he wasn't big enough to try yet and maybe he would wait until he was 5.

Then today when we brought the little $10 bike he decided that we should try and use it.  Once we got to the park he was a bit dubious again, but I told him that he was clever and big and if he didn't like it we didn't need to ride it again until he felt he wanted to.

So he sat on it and I ran across the field with him a few times but I could see that he was having trouble on the grass so I asked him if he felt that he wanted to try it on the concrete, he was scared that he would fall and I told him I would run beside him and catch him if he went to fall.

I only ran with him for about 5 minutes before he told me I was to slow and he wanted to get off the large concrete square and ride around the bike track.

And so I kept running, as he steered like a little boy who had been riding for weeks, he figured out how to use the brake but was still learning how to start off by himself.

Then Andrew turned up and talked a bit more about how to put your foot on the high peddle and push off with the other foot.

And after about an hour he got the hang of it.

He was so excited he rose around the bike track for over 2 hours, over speed humps, up hills, steering around all the other kids.

I was so proud that my face hurt from smiling, it wasn't that he could ride a bike or even that he accomplished what he set out to do, it was that he was brave and tried something he was scared to do, he was so proud of himself as well, telling me that he thought it would be scary and that once "he tried it, he liked it" (thanks Yo Gabba Gabba)