Pedal, pedal!!!

Did you ever realize just how much coordination goes into riding a bike?  You start out very young with training wheels, you hop on, and eventually you move to no training wheels.  Well, it's not been so easy here.  First off, the place that we have lived has been almost completely and fully wooded, and what isn't is very hilly.  The boys haven't had a lot of flat good places to ride on. With J's complete lack of coordination, having a completely flat place and tons of time are essential.  Therefore, my nine year old does not know how to ride a bike.  I had tried taking him up on the paved road, but he got so nervous at being on the road with the cars that it was not good.

So today, after taking a load of things to the farm, I decided to spend some time working with him after I noticed him careening wildly in the grass and getting frustrated.  I put him on the bike, and then had to spend some time calming him down.  Then we worked on visualizing how the handle bars needed to be, how his body needed to be.  And then we walked.  Rather, he rode, and I gripped the back of his shirt and walked.  I walked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth down the driveway.  Tiny steps.   Tiny steps.

When he actually got a few feet down the driveway with out me literally holding him upright on the bike, I cheered like he had just won the World Series.  After a while, he got tired, and he had a harder and harder time staying up on the bike.  So, we decided that he was tired, and it was time to stop for the day.

I wanted SO badly for him to end the day by riding that bike up and down that driveway like a pro.  But, it's not about me.  He was happy, and he felt successful.  So, we will keep at it.  Tiny steps momma, tiny steps.

I read something today struck my heart.  Another mom who writes frequently was discussing the Salem witch trials with her daughter, and they came to a section about how "they singled out everyone who acted strangely" and her daughter was upset and said that they would have singled out her autistic sister.  She's a smart little girl.  People fear what they don't understand.  As her mom said, "Awareness matters."  It TRULY does.