Bicycle Breakdowns

I have been working with my sweet son on riding his bike without training wheels since last spring. We had an initial burst of glory and then a spectacular crash after which he refused to ride for the rest of the summer. My daughter is about as bad. She got a big girl princess bike with training wheels for her birthday back in March and never felt comfortable riding it. We live in the best area for family bike rides and I refuse to give up on making my kids into bike riders!

I started in with Zella once school started. She is on a half day schedule this year and so we have our afternoons together. Four hours every day to fill up with mommy daughter fun. I broke out the bike and we have been working on riding it around the block. She has actually gotten fairly good although she is fearful of going too fast- a problem with all the hills around here.

For Zander I decided to borrow a different bike from some friends. The one he has had for a few years is really heavy with a front shock that looks rockin' cool but makes it heavy and hard to balance on. Now we have a much smaller, lighter spiderman bike and he has taken off on it. Hallelujah! Yesterday he was doing so well on the back driveway that he asked if we could work on riding down the front sidewalks. I said yes and he ran his bike around and started riding. Then he crashed out and gave himself a huge goose egg on his eye. Dumb mommy had not made him put his helmet on. Seriously? Who is going to call me in to DHS?

Not wanting the injury to put us out of riding for another 3 months I suggested we do a ride after school today and both kids were game. We hopped on bikes and slooooooowly made our way around a couple blocks. Then Zander tired out. Then Zella flamed out. So, if you happened to drive down Walker at about 4:00 this afternoon, yes- that was me with the screaming child walking her bike because her horribly mean mommy would not carry it all the way home.

Needless to say my brilliant idea of riding to our neighborhood concert/party tonight has been put on the shelf. Lance... where are you with my beer?????