Riding in Style

As you may recall, we gave Eddie a tricycle for his second birthday. We tried to teach him how to ride it, but no matter how much we tried, he didn't seem to get it before the winter came. I was starting to wonder if he was a little too uncoordinated. Then when I took him in for his three year well-check this year, the doctor told me that he should now be developmentally ready to learn to pedal. I wish I'd known that a year ago.

So Eddie spent this summer actually learning to ride his trike, despite looking like he could barely fit on it any more. Once he got the hang of the pedaling and could ride it without one of us behind him to push him every three feet, I got thinking about upgrading him to a real bike. Lucky for us, our friends Steve & Melissa just upgraded their son to the next size of bike, so they let us have his old 12-inch one (thanks guys). They brought it over last week, much to Eddie's delight.

After a couple of trips outside to practice, Eddie has gotten really good at riding. His biggest problems are his shoes having no traction on the bottom (so his feet slide off the pedals), the back tire having no traction (completely expected in a three year old's bike with pedal brakes), and learning to pedal without engaging the brakes. Dave patiently walked around and around the courtyard with Eddie as he learned to pedal and showed his "brand newer than yours" bike off to all the other kids. Every time he'd accidentally pedal backward and hit the brakes, Eddie would angrily say, "Hey! Who did do that?"

Now we've gotten him some new shoes and a new back tire, so he should be able to ride with ease. And we bought him a stylish new Batman helmet and bell that match his bike beautifully. He really is riding in style.