Sometimes my kids learn things because I planned a careful lesson, taught it regularly and they made predictable progress. But most of the time, nothing happens for a long time, then BAM. When they are ready, they get obsessed, and it clicks. I guess that counts as funny.
B has been enjoying his unicycle this year, having learned most of it last year. He was our crowd getter at the Family Fun Fair this summer. I think he learned it partly because he really wanted to, and partly because no one thought he could.
This summer, M decided it was time to conquer the two wheel. Anywhere we went, he went on it. The last part to click was breaks. Sometimes his stops were spectacular and scary.
But now that he’s got it, it’s hard to photograph him, he moves so fast, and that’s happy.
K is beginning to be comfortable on her scooter, but she likes the seat so low she can’t really glide on it.
Mostly she likes to pretend that she is riding like her brother, without having to take her feet off the ground.
I think the helmet matching her scooter is pretty. The real part of taking the scooter to the park for recess is that I always have to carry it home, she wants to skip and run!
Sweet!
Yep.
This is delightful and powerful. Going through the “empty nest” syndrome myself, I frequently think back to the childhoods of those I influenced and to my own childhood along with those who influenced me.
But drawing those memories to consciousness becomes more difficult with time. Unless I do something about it fairly soon, all of those experiences will be permanently lost to history. You might be raising the next Thomas Edison, Pierpont Morgan or Betsy Ross. When the historians work on the biographies, you have made their work so very rich. It makes a very good read in live action. Hold on to these times as long as constructively possible. The teens and young adults in my life are now so preoccupied with education, work, dating concerns and autonomy that I feel honored sitting down with them over a simple cup of coffee.
But then on the flip side, when they all go away, we can sit on the front porch, eat oysters on the half shell, drink iced tea and paint dragons on each others faces.
Welcome Warren! I’m so glad you like it.
Wonderful lessons :) Have fun!
Thank you!
So glad to see you enforce the helmet issue. I was the only one in our ‘hood who did and even though they are both young adults, my children still remind me how mean I was about helmets. I return with, “at least you are still alive”. They are not amused!
My Dad made me wear a helmet in the early ’80’s when no one had heard of brain injuries from Bicycle accidents yet. He read about them in his bicycle magazines. The kids in my Jr High called me “Spike” because they said I looked like a part of a motorcycle gang in my helmet. I never figured out anything cool to rejoin them with, and they were probably jealous that I had a nice bicycle in the first place!
So, yeah, my kids are stuck with the helmets too.
But so far, no one calls them names for it.