Sunday, June 7, 2009

News of the Weekend!

After breakfast on Saturday morning, we headed outside to take Benjamin's training wheels off! We've been talking about doing this for a while and wanted to wait until the weather and (Daddy's schedule) afforded us lots of practice time.

Here he is heading off on two wheels for the first time.

Our street has a little "annex" that leads to another (much more affluent) neighborhood. (I joke that it's where the feudal lords live, and that we live in the peasant village :-) Jim thought this would be the perfect place for the kids to practice riding, since there's not much traffic and it's almost flat.

I love this shot (below). You can almost hear Jim's back screaming, can't you?!? ...reminds me of one of those old V-8 commercials where the people all walked around crooked b/c they hadn't had their V-8 for the day... And I love "Little Miss Thing" following along with her girly streamers blowin' in the breeze!

She made a lot of progress this weekend, too. Her bike is actually bigger than Ben's (for numerous reasons that I won't go into right now...), so it takes a good bit of "oomph" for her to keep it going.

Ben was a super bike student!!! He thoroughly enjoyed the process of figuring out how to do it himself. He never once cried. He never took a bad spill. When he fell, he would simply untangle himself and stand back up. He didn't get frustrated and actually spent most of the time giggling and smiling as he just kept working at it.

A few minutes in, Jim asked him, "Are you havin' fun, Buddy?"

He replied, "No, but I'm gonna get this!"

After maybe 30 minutes or less, we were able to start letting go...

Ellie was also very proud of herself, as well she should be. She told Daddy,"I can get on my bike by myself. I can turn by myself. I am a star!!!!" Here's her "star" pose, I guess. Oh my, are we doomed... :-)

Look at that "I'm proud of myself" smile!!

And by the end of our first 45-minute "session," he was doing GREAT! He begged to go back to our practice spot (that no man's land between socio-economic levels) after lunch. We returned for only about 30 minutes, during which time he mastered turning.

Today (Sunday) after lunch we went back again, and the child mastered starting by himself! Jim and I seriously can't believe how "easy" the whole transition was. Now if only all other transitions in life were this easy...

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