What do you know? I can do this!

I got home around 7pm Monday and B met me at the door to ask if I would take her bike riding. To recap, so far she can ride pretty well in a straight line, so this time we were going to work on turning. The only thing is, I couldn't remember how I learned. Well, actually, I do remember but that's not the way I plan on teaching B. When I was five, my parents bought me a big bike and my five brothers provided all the horsepower needed to push me really fast until I was headed straight for the azalea bushes, which I would always crash into amid lots of laughter and finger pointing. They kept pushing me on the bike until I stopped crashing into the azalea bushes and started riding my bike. I have no idea how those azaleas made it through the ordeal and to this day, I still don't like azaleas.

But it worked and I didn't break any bones and only got assorted scratches and bumps. Come to think of it, perhaps my brothers showed an unusual amount of determination in helping me learn to ride my bike, maybe that wasn't their main reason for spending those Saturday afternoons, pushing me on the bike?

I decided that the best way to get B to learn how to be able to make turns on her bike without falling over was to get her to ride all the way down to the intersection and turn up into the street and then stop. We live in a very quiet neighborhood and we were practicing on the last street at the back of the neighborhood, so all was safe. This worked very well and after a couple of circuits, I told her to turn all the way around and ride back to me.

The first time she tried it, she got scared and bailed. But on her third try, she turned all the way around and came pedaling towards me, all smiles and bike helmet. She had to bail a few more times but by the end of the evening, she was able to turn around easily. My guess is within a week or so, I'll have to pull my bike out and start riding with her. She's going to want to go beyond the one block length of the street.

So, I've taught her to ride a bike in more or less four hours...I need to call my brothers and have a talk with them. I'm learning a lot from having a stepdaughter. For example, I'm starting to see my brothers didn't always have my best interests in mind. And I still don't like azaleas.  ¶ 11:56 AM