Saturday, 14 May 2011

• Learning to Ride a Bike and Other Little Joys In Life

  Today was just an ordinary day, or so I thought. The kids were at school in the morning while I was at home with the twins. Jack then came home and later on so did Alana. It was over dinner that we were talking about things in general - like the fact that apparently I'm colorblind, what the kids did at school, and so on that we somehow made it to the topic of riding bikes.

  Alana still has training wheels and we were discussing that maybe over the summer we could remove them. It was during this conversation that she said that she wanted her stabilizers off - after they finished dinner. 

  And so they came off.

  We got the helmet on, the knee pads and the elbow pads, a good jacket and the correct shoes just to make sure that if she did fall, there wouldn't be tears and screaming or a lot of blood. When we were sure she was protected, we took off outside ready to try and teach Alana to ride the bike on her own.

  It was easier said than done - for the first half hour.

  I was a little wary. I mean even though she's five it was going to be hard work and I really didn't want her to get hurt. I decided to try her on the grass first but that was just too difficult as it was bumpy or too long so we quickly moved to the concrete. After that she started to take to it like a duck to water.

  With the twins in bed, Mary, Ciaran and I were outside helping Alana. After around thirty minutes to an hour she was able to go off by herself and now she's just flying. It amazed me and the joy on her face was amazing. I couldn't believe it. I thought it would take a week or so for some reason.

  She's still a little wobbly but we've only being doing it for a couple of hours outside. She'll have the hang of it in no time, she's definitely a fast learner. It's little things like these that makes working with kids great. I love the fact that I was able to help her to learn a new skill. It's a lot of work and sometimes incredibly frustrating but it was worth every minute of it, even if it did do my back and neck in for a bit from bending down to hold and push the bike.

  What little joys have your children shown you? What skills have you taught them that have just made you beam like a proud parent?

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