There are so many life lessons in learning to ride a bike. Balance, perseverance, fear, pain, joy, focus, momentum… Almost as many lessons in teaching your kid.
There is a dip halfway down the hill Elijah is learning on. I hold my breath every time he gets close, at the edge of control. And I keep quiet. Each time he gets through, I heave a sigh. One time though, Natasha saw him going down, fast, and yelled, “Watch out! slow down!” and of course, he lost it…
BAM!! Screams, bloody face. 😦
That night in bed he is drifting off to sleep and mumbles:
“I think you need to put the training wheels back on my bike…”
“OK,” I say, “Or, you could learn how to slow down without stopping. that is the trick to going down that hill.”
“Oh” he says, not committing to either path, and sleeps on it.
The next day I come home from work to hear that he decided to leave the training wheels off.
How did it go?
His stoicism- not sure about this- and Natasha’s hand, also telling of another dynamic ( a post for another day)
Inner Eden 