It's been a long saga of timid attempts by Bear to learn to ride his two-wheeler. A very cautious kid, he made sure Yukon was there for weeks, holding on to the crossbar. Yukon, anxious himself, made sure to provide short spurts of teaching intermingled with plenty of attaboy's.
I did things a little different. Not better, mind you, just different.
I remember teaching Wolf to ride his bike; a bit cautious himself, but more willing to take a chance and see what happened if he fell off. Which he of course did, but since I taught him on the two acres of lumpy pastureland upon which we were living at the time, it was a fairly harmless way of learning to ride a bicycle.
Bear had been grumpy all day, I'm sure due to one phase of growing up or another, at any rate, he stomped outside to ride his training wheel bike (we have several bikes to choose from, thanks to cool neighbors), and I began mowing the lawn. It was obvious he was ready to ride the two-wheeler, and it really didn't take much convincing to get him to straddle the fiery red and yellow bike and let me hold on to the rear of the seat. (key, here).
We had gone about 10 yards before it was obvious the only thing holding him back was indeed his cautious nature, so I loosened my grip to just below his lower back, so he thought I was still holding on. Hah.
Is there anything more liberating to a little boy than the moment he takes off, unaided by grownup hands, and pedals off into the sunset? Nope. I don't think so.
And three or so hours later, he's still out there, standing up to pedal and turning around like a pro.
We're on our way.
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