Have Bike, Will Travel

Kristina asked to do two things when she came here two weeks ago: swim and ride a bike. We quickly learned that although she had a strong desire to do both things, she didn't know how. Robert took out Joshua's bike for her and Kristina climbed on unhesitatingly. But that's all she could do! Robert spent a little time trying to show her how the pedals worked, but we concluded that a set of training wheels would give her greater confidence. Patti was kind enough to let us borrow one of Kaitlin's old bike and I swung by Wal-Mart this afternoon and we picked out a helmet and set of training wheels. I told her Robert would put the wheels on when he got home from work. I could tell she didn't want to wait. She paced back and forth with her riding helmet on and finally asked if she could just sit on the bike in front of the house. I agreed knowing she would probably get distracted watching the boys play four-square until Robert got home.

I am busy putting away our Wal-Mart purchses and Hannah runs in the house shouting, "I taught her! I taught her!" It has been less than ten minutes since the children went outside, so I'm sure she's not talking about bike riding. As I walk outside I hear Kristina's voice shouting, "Leslie! Leslie!", as she whirls past me. Unbelievable! Where there's a will, there's a way! Of course I ran back inside to grab the camera. Its been two hours and she's still riding back and forth in front of the house. She has fallen once and scraped her knee. She came inside to show me her war wounds half defeated and half with pride. As she sat on the bathroom counter and I cleaned her scraps and applied a band-aid, she goes through the medicine cabinet next to her trying on my braclets and perfume. And now she has returned to wearing a back and forth pattern in the pavement in front of the house. Periodically she will shout, "Oh no! Oh no!" as she steers into the grass, but she's doing great! :)