Learning to Ride a Bike

Do you remember when you first learned to ride a bike? I don't remember when I first learned to ride a regular bike, but I do remember the day when my mom took my training wheels off. I'm not sure how old I was, but I remember her taking me down to the dead end near our house and making me learn. I crashed into a prickly bush and had all these little cuts all over the palms of my hands and it hurt like heck. I wanted to go home and was crying but she persisted and made me get back up and figure it out. And I did, that very day. I remember going home and riding up and down our horseshoe driveway that connected to our next door neighbors (who were awesome), for hours and singing songs from The Little Mermaid.
It took Aiden a bit to figure out how to pedal his big bike, and likewise has taken Devin just as long. He could do his tricycle but always wanted to go forward a bit and then go backwards. You can't pedal backwards on a big bike and that was frustrating to him I think. I felt it was high time he figured it out, and it was a good time for Aiden to try and learn a two wheeler. And what a more memorable place to learn to ride your bike then at Stanford? So we loaded up the bikes and headed on out.

Note that the videos in this post aren't very long, and hope you check them all out :)

DAY 1

Micah taking off the training wheels with the assistance from Devin. Aiden was actually really really excited to ride...
(Notice all the padding and gloves?? No scratches on the hands for this kid!)

We warned him that it was going to be hard and that he was going to fall, but that we would be right there and were going to help him. I didn't expect him to think he had to fall all the time, even just standing up! Goober.

I'm glad that we found a nice wide, long, and quiet path for him to start on.

Sorry this one is sideways, but it shows basically how the day went. Hold on, let go, fall down. He kept leaning over, not peddling, and wouldn't watch where he was going. It was a lot for him to take in I think.

I tried working with Devin and getting him to pedal but it really wasn't going very well for him. He wanted to be by Daddy and Aiden and was pretty disinterested in actually riding himself.

After falling, again, Aiden got really really upset. I mean he was yelling at his bike, punching the seat, kicking the wheels, the whole fit and tantrum. He stomped off a bit and was really mad. I got the tail end of it when we called him back. My heart went out to the poor guy but it was all that Micah and I could do to stop from laughing. And honestly we didn't do a very good job holding it all in...lol But he was so mad he wasn't paying attention to us ;)

Words of encouragement.

Devin deciding he was "done". Which was fine because we had some threatening weather heading our way and we had a bit of a walk to get back to the car. Micah put the training wheels back on and called it a day.

The next day we kept everything packed up in the car and decided to try again after church. Micah had to go to the hospital and get some things printed off, so we decided to stay there and try again. Technically we're still at "Stanford" and already at the hospital in case anything bad happened-haha.

DAY 2

Micah thought Aiden would do ok with just one training wheel on, but it still wasn't going that great, and I thought it might get confusing, so he took the other off and started again.

Devin, on the other hand, finally had a break through! While Micah was inside I was trying again to get him to pedal. I had let the boys pick out a horn or bell for their bikes and promised it to them when they learned to ride. I was using Devin's horn as inspiration for him to pedal to it, and he was soooo close! Finally when Micah came out he showed off for Daddy and really rode, and earned his horn :) We put it on his bike, and he rode the whole rest of the day.

He started using his horn to call "Help Help!" when he got a little stuck and needed a tiny shove. You might hear him in some of the videos yelling for Daddy or Help because his pedals are at that point where he can't really get going again and wants help.

Micah needed a break and I took over for a bit.
Aiden was doing pretty good too. There were times we were barely holding him up and often let him go and he would go great until he stopped peddling.

The Devinator thought it was fun to try and run into Aiden. he was always chasing him down and trying to "get him".

We were at it for a few hours and were so proud of the progress he made that day. It was much much better than the first day, but he's still not quite there yet. I was so happy his spirits were up almost the whole time. He badly wants his bell and kept asking for it. I'd let him ring it a few times for good luck, but he doesn't get it until he's mastered riding without his training wheels. But they both did earn some ice cream that day :)
When I gave the boys a bath that night I noticed all the bruises on Aiden's shins...poor guy! But he's such a trooper and never complained too much.

And the bike isn't without it's own casualties. The pedals have taken quite a beating and there are some scratches on the seat etc. But in the end, it's a boys bike and bound to get beat up!
We'll keep you posted on how he does...he's pretty motivated and I hope it doesn't take him too much longer to figure it out. Until then...Go Aiden!!