by george, she's got it!

For two years Rachel has wanted to ride her bike without training wheels.  Every time we'd try to take them off and teach her, she'd try a couple of times, get frustrated that she couldn't get it, usually cry, and give up.  I've written before that she isn't really determined to do things that don't come easily for her.  That's why I was so thrilled when she worked and worked at the monkey bars last fall.  Unfortunately, she's her mother's daughter, in that she wants to be good at whatever she does, and if she can't do it well, she doesn't want to do it at all.

Meanwhile, pretty much everyone she knows can ride theirs, and she felt babyish, and didn't like it, but wasn't all that determined to change things.  She hardly ever wanted to practice, and it was like pulling teeth to get her to try.

A month or so ago a friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook of her son (someone Rachel knows from church, and he's the same age as she is) finally learning to ride his bike.  That got her interested.  She asked me that afternoon to take her out and help her, which I did.  She started asking more and more often.  I looked up online, "How to teach your child to ride a bike," and in a couple different places I saw the suggestion of taking off the pedals and just letting them learn to glide and balance, without worrying about pedaling.  It made sense....I'd heard about balance bikes for several years, which are the same idea.  We just never had one, so she hadn't tried it.

Two days ago we took off the pedals.  She started practicing walking the bike, eventually learning to lift up her feet and glide a little bit.  This morning I started setting goals for her:  Let's see if you can make it to the next mailbox.  Now lets see if you can go two mailboxes.  Now try to get all the way to those garbage cans down there.  She enjoyed the challenge for a change, and caught on quickly.  Within a few minutes she could go quite a ways.  A YouTube video I watched said that the next step was to put the pedals back on and just have them glide with their feet on the pedals.  So I mentioned that we should put her pedals back on.  "Really?"  She asked.  I told her she didn't have to pedal, but just put her feet on the pedals.  "I can't pedal?" She asked.  I told her she could if she wanted to, but didn't have to.  I put them back on, she got on, and tried it.  All of a sudden she started pedaling and went halfway down the street!  She was squealing, and I was yelling with tears in my eyes, "Wow, Rachel!  Great job!  Look at you go!"  I couldn't believe it!  The first try!

She's so proud of herself, and we couldn't be prouder of her.