Thursday, June 2, 2011

The freedom of riding a bike

Teaching Oliver to ride a bike had been a slow process.  I would have compared it to waiting for your short haircut to finally grow out enough to fit into a ponytail.  It was taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R.  Jacob had logged countless hours of pushing, hunch over no less, this kid up and down the sidewalk with the solid promise that he would "never let go" as Oliver had asked.  And to top it off Jacob had taken the training wheels off, can you believe the security of the training wheels had been ripped away?  But there is a reason those damn Scoot bikes without pedals are hundreds of dollars, they promise the dream of learning how to ride a bike naturally.  So off went the pedals too.

Maybe it was the constant practice, maybe it was that one sunny day Portland had that brought out Oliver's confidence but in less that a month he has been doing things on his bike I wouldn't have dreamed were ever going to happen.  For example:

Maybe it was bad for me to post this video, I mean I was surprised he was game to ride down this big hill, he'd hardly coast down a wheelchair access ramp.  But wait!  You won't believe what he did next...

And he did it over and over and over. The simple joy in his squeals and look on his face would bring any parent to proud tears!



1 comment:

  1. Wow, such a daredevil!! Love the elated/terrified look on his face. Go Ollie!

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