On Wheels

For this past Christmas, Audrey and Dallin both received new bikes. (Well, new to them. $15 for both bikes at the same garage sale when they weren't even for sale! I'm telling you, I've got skills!) They both love their bikes, Dallin especially. He asks to go ride bikes several times a day, every day. So cute. He's really good at it too, and quite the daredevil. He likes to stand up and coast, zoom down the driveway while standing, and he has even tried to stand on his seat. Crazy kid. Dallin has so much fun riding his bike every day. Best $5 I've ever spent!

We took the training wheels off of Audrey's smaller bike, put them on Dallin's (poor kid has girly training wheels - the other training wheels didn't fit), and then put the other training wheels on Audrey's "new" bigger bike. It took some finagling on Melvin's part to get the training wheels to fit right on either bike. It turns out that he needn't have spent quite so much time at it.

Her first attempts.

At the beginning of February, after riding her "big" bike for a while, Audrey decided that she wanted to practice riding her "little bike without training wheels." I did the whole holding-the-back-of-the-seat-while-running-behind-her thing for a couple of days (very tiring with such a small bike!) and that wasn't working so well. Audrey occasionally has difficulty listening to what I say. But she is extremely determined. She decided just to practice on her own (because I was frustrated and took a break), wobbling around on the street with her toes pushing the bike along and trying to put her feet on the pedals every now and then. Pretty soon she was managing to get two or three rotations of the pedals before having to steady herself by putting her feet back on the ground. Then, all of a sudden, there she went! On two wheels all by herself! Oh, the jubilation! You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. Audrey wobbly rode her bike around our cul-de-sac singing "la la la la la la..." with sheer joy for her accomplishment. It was fun to watch.

Success a couple days later

Now she's an expert. (Still a little wobbly at times but really pretty good on the whole.) She and Dallin have races and she now zooms down the driveway too. The bigger bike, with the training wheels still attached, gets used whenever Audrey decides to switch. I don't think she can handle that one without the extra help simply because of the bike's larger size and weight. But I could be wrong. It's been proven over and over again that "if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." And that is particularly true in Audrey's case.

A cyber high-five for identifying the (really, too easy) movie quote.