My husband and I have been working with our sweetpea off and on for a couple of weeks now - letting her get her bearings and assuring her we won't let go until she is ready. We started by letting her ride on the street in our neighborhood. But this weekend we took the bike and the dog and went on a nice walk.The neighborhood we live in is a new area where they are still building homes and there are still open areas of dirt and wild tall grasses. This is one of my favorite places to go walking with my daughter. We love looking at the animal footprints in the dirt and mud and the geese that fly in to land on the water in the little ponds. She loves to climb the dirt hills and walk along the water's edge.
On our walk this weekend, we ended up in this same area and realized what a perfect place it would be to practice on the bike. The ground is hard enough to be able to pedal easily and soft and silty enough to cause very little damage to little hands and knees when the falls occur. Daddy gave her big pushes and she took a few pedals but would put her feet down rather quickly most of the time. On a couple of occasions she braved it enough to get about 15 feet or so before putting her feet down. It was a great improvement. I could see her confidence and determination growing.
Today we ventured out yet again to the soft dirt to practice. Again, Daddy gave her some pretty big pushes to get her started and once she seemed to be gaining a better sense of balance, he patiently taught her to push off on her own. Oh my, she must have tried 50 times today. At one point she was teary-eyed from being tired and having a near spill that scared her and we urged her to take a break for the day, promising that we would return tomorrow. She wouldn't hear of it. She was so determined to keep trying until we were at our doorstep again.
Daddy walked ahead with Jovie, our sweet puppy, and I walked along side my daughter as she bravely sniffled her fear away and kept trying. A push and a couple of pedals and a walk off to the left....a push and a couple of pedals and a walk off to the right....a push and a few pedals and a walk off to the left. It was windy and a bit cold and I was getting hungry. But she seemed to need to squeeze every last minute of this time to practice. So I kept encouraging her and kept walking slowly beside her. And then she looked at me and said, "I can do this, Mommy." And I said, "I know you can." She pushed off and left me in the dust. She pedaled and pedaled a good 100 feet or more, even taking a turn and, wobbly as it was, she kept on pedaling and yelling, "I'm doing it! Look, I'm doing it! Look at me, Daddy!" And I was screaming and laughing behind her, "Look at her go!" She finally stopped and put down the kickstand and ran to her daddy, "Did you see me, Daddy! I did it! All by myself! I did it!" Then she raced back to me and the bike and jumped back on again. She rode right back to the house. When she got off she threw her arms around her dad and said, "Thank you, Daddy! Thank you for everything!" Then she hugged me and thanked me too. I choked back the tears.
2 comments:
This blog post was absolutely amazing, your work is also amazing but this post and the photos, so uplifting...inspiring!
Thanks so much. It was an inspiring event so it was easy to write about. Thank you for stopping by;-)
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