I can still remember when our oldest children started to learn to read—it was thrilling hearing their voices sound out words and knowing that a new world was opening up to them. Our son now, almost daily, informs us of some new fact about an animal that he’s picked up from reading in one of his many animal books, or from the San Diego Zoo website. As a side note, I’ve had to promise him that someday when we go back to America that we will take him there—anyone live in the San Diego area? =)
I’ve promised eldest daughter that one day I will take her to Paris (that one was maybe my fault—but I do love France, and now I have a promise to fulfill that requires us to go back there before she’s a full-grown teenager).
I haven’t had to promise youngest imp anything…yet; but I’ve a feeling she’ll catch on to this pretty quickly.
Anyway, lately we’ve been experiencing another new milestone (beyond learning to read and learning to extort promises from us): the eldest two are riding bikes, without training wheels. This one has been a long time in the works. See, we had bikes in America, but no really good place to ride consistently (we had a gravel drive). So we would go in spurts and, occasionally, right before we left, eldest daughter would get brave and ask to take the training wheels off, but no one ever got the hang of it before we left. Then we arrived here in middle of the summer, which is a lot like turning your oven on high and then sticking your head in it—not conducive to being outside during the daylight hours. However, the temps, at least for now, are milder and all three children received bikes for Christmas so we’ve been out a lot practicing. Now, the thing about buying bikes here is that, well, while they look like they might be high quality they really aren’t built to last. The training wells started bending up the first day, which could have been frustrating, but it actually helped the eldest two to start balancing on their own. A couple days of doing that and they we’re ready for them to come off. As no surprise to me, eldest daughter went first, which spurred on eldest son (who is the oldest) to catch up, as he didn’t really want his little sister to pass him. So the two together have been wobbling, careening and crashing, and through this actually riding.
As to youngest imp, she decidedly is not one to follow the crowd—also no surprise to me. As she watched her older brother and sister take off on this new adventure, she emphatically told me to NOT take her wheels off too. Which is fine with us, it gives us something more to look forward to in the future—and really, who wants three children learning to ride bikes in a tight space at the same time? =)
