My middle daughter will never learn to ride a bicycle. As a mom, I feel like it’s my responsibility to teach various basic life lessons, such as how to swim, how to crack an egg, how to sew a button and how to ride a bike. I have failed at this last task with my middle one.
My oldest, my 10-year-old, learned to ride a bicycle in the typical fashion. She progressed from tricycle to two-wheeler with training wheels to a larger two-wheeler to her current adult-sized cruiser. Then, my middle, eight-year-old daughter came along and we started out on the same path, that is until her brother arrived on the scene. Unfortunately for her, he was born with an uncanny sense of balance. He skipped the tricycle and training wheel phase entirely and went straight to a two-wheeler without thinking twice. He lapped his sister without her even realizing it. She was still fearful of the training wheels – “It’s too tippy!” - and he was flying down our street on a two-wheeler.
Trust me, I tried to teach her. And trust me, if you knew her you would understand that it has not worked out for us to date. We have developed workarounds, such as using a tandem bicycle that attaches to my bicycle so that all of us can ride together. But she’s getting close to outgrowing the tandem. She had to come up with an alternative.
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This Christmas, my middle thought she had found the perfect solution to her non-bicycle-riding-ability issue.
“I’m going to ask Santa for a motor scooter so that I can keep up with [my brother and sister] when they are riding their bikes!”
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She was so hopeful that this would solve all of her bicycle problems. And so was I.
One glitch in the plan though – my other two jumped on the “I’m asking Santa for a motor scooter” bandwagon.
Several hundred dollars later, Santa delivered three fully-charged motor scooters to our house on Christmas morning.
By 9 a.m., we were all outside to try them out.
Within about 10 minutes, my son was zipping up and down the street. My oldest figured it out next and although not as bold as her brother, was still pushing maximum scooter speed in no time.
And then there was my middle one.
“Come on, sweetie! You can do it!” I offered encouragement and cheered her on.
“But it’s too fast! I’m scared! They keep speeding past me! It feels like they are going to hit me!”
After all that Santa letter writing, waiting and anticipating that goes along with Christmas, the one gift that she wanted turned out to be not as perfect as she had imagined.
I tried to be patient but it was chilly and I was standing in the middle of the street in my pajamas. If she didn’t figure out the scooter soon, I was heading back inside for more coffee.
But I saw how bummed she was. So I sent my son and my oldest back into the house and stayed with my middle so she could practice by herself at her own pace.
“I can’t do it!”
“Yes, you can! I know you can! Just try!”
“It’s not working!
“Yes it is, you can do it.”
We went back and forth like this for a while.
FINALLY, after many stops and starts, she got it - a good straightaway run on the scooter with the wind in her hair. The exhilaration on her face was completely worth all of my neighbors seeing me in my pajamas.
Several days into it now, she is still hesitant and may never ride full throttle like her brother. The Christmas present that was all she wanted was a big disappointment at first. But I believe in her. I believe that she is not destined for the three-wheel adult bicycle. With a little more practice, I think she just may have found her bicycle.
