My three lovely ladies…
I feel like our family crossed a nearly invisible line this weekend…my daughters, specifically.
While most of their bicycling takes place on the back of our Yuba Mundo, our girls still take little trips in our neighborhood aboard their own bikes (which, committed blog readers will recall, have been sans-training-wheels for under a year). These small rides have been on familiar roads in our little corner of the world, and haven’t involved crossing major thoroughfares or traveling further than half a mile.
Those thresholds have been rolled over, now. As is the case with many revolutions, this one started with something small: a pair of unplanned, spur-of-the-moment trips that would have been previously undertaken by Mundo or by car. This weekend, though, the girls asked if they could ride their bikes, instead, and my wife and I (probably looking like puppies that are confused by something new and shiny) looked at each other and found ourselves saying, “Sure, why not?”
The first trip was to our friends’ house for dinner, before dusk (the bikes were driven home later by our kind hosts in their spacious minivan–I’m not yet bold enough to have them attempt night riding). It was just me and my daughters, and–much like when they first had their training wheels removed and I was running behind them–they held up better than I did. I reminded them of a few instructions, which they followed (and had already retained), and we made a little three-bike train of sorts into the neighboring community.
I kept twisting around, and talking to them, and they were just smiling and pedaling and smiling some more. They stopped when they were supposed to, listened to my voice, and provided some sweet commentary as we rolled along (“Daddy, look! That tree is pretty!”). The contented and proud looks on their faces made my eyes well up. I was happy, wistful, a bit scared, and trying to not run into anything, It seems so obvious and melodramatic, but–truly–parenting is filled with rides on emotional roller coasters that you had no advanced warning you were taking.
This trek was both momentous and liberating for them, and–at the same time–just the normal next step in their journeys. In a year filled with large and small milestones in their growth, this one was particularly profound for me. Their beaming faces in the fading light made them age a good couple years, in my mind.
The next day, my wife and the girls were excited to take our new-to-us breadmaker for a spin (a metaphorical spin in the kitchen, not an actual spin on a bike–that would be weird, unless you’re a baker who is really averse to driving). Realizing she needed supplies from the Co-Op, my wife was going to ride there alone before baking began. But she asked our daughters if they wanted to come along, and they jumped up and down at the prospect. This ride was daunting, in my mind, because it involved a busier area in which they’d never remotely ridden (although they had taken it many times aboard the Mundo). But Mommy is more cautious than Daddy when it comes to biking, so I deferred to her judgement (and rightly so).
About 45 minutes later, they bounded up the stairs and told me all about the flour they bought and how they “rode like big girls” to the Co-Op and (you can’t leave this part out) “We got a blueberry bagel!” Just an aside–I wish I could get that excited over a bagel. (To be fair, they do have good bagels at the Co-Op).
My wife said that the girls did a great job, and I found myself not being surprised in the least. They are wonderful girls, smart and capable. I am often guilty of not trusting them enough, and I hope that I’m not slowing their progression through childhood. Hopefully I will remember this weekend’s two little seismic shifts and do a better job, going forward, in letting them go forward, too.
8legs2wheels 